Violin to the “nth degree” warmly received

That is an apt description of the superb musical experience that the audience enjoyed at the Smetana Hall at Prague’s Municipal House on 30 March 2015. As part of the New Horizons series put on by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the leading Czech violinists Václav Hudeček, Josef Špaček, Jan Mráček and Petr Matěják came together to produce breathtaking violin fireworks. The trio of musicians a generation younger have much in common with Václav Hudeček, including having attended courses at his Academy in Luhačovice, where they earned the highest awards. Each represents a similarly promising start, just as he himself once shone. The concert was recorded by both Czech Radio and Czech Television. The dramaturgy of the concert was in the spirit of a big show, which in this case greatly magnified the unusual nature and impact of the entire performance. Witty comments from Jan Pokorný and Václav Hudeček at the beginning and between individual numbers were one aspect of that. The concert was begun by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, helmed by Tomáš Brauner, with a gracefully light overture from Rossini’s opera The Silken Ladder. The orchestra was in excellent form, immediately impressing with its appetite and joy of playing. It accompanied the soloists very perceptively and sensitively in both agogically and dynamically delicate places. Sparks from the strings of Jan Mráček were the first to ignite the violin fireworks in a dazzling rendition of Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. It is hard to believe that the colourful, beautiful sound in the Introduction was conjured up from an ordinary “factory” by the violinist. The virtuoso conclusion of the Rondo was approaching supersonic speed but nevertheless every nanosecond was precisely distinct and exact.

Mráček is a fresh winner of Vienna’s Fritz Kreisler competition and without doubt one of the most distinctive young violinists to appear in our country in recent decades. In his disposition and radiant charisma he reminds me greatly of the young Václav Hudeček. Petr Matěják rendered the mood of the popular solo from Massenet’s opera Thaïs most tastefully and impressively. This sentimental music strikes me as far more palatable with instrumentation featuring harp than in the piano version. This contrasts with the subsequent Vals scherzo by Tchaikovsky, when the smooth finesses of the violin technique was occasionally lost in the orchestral instrumentation, which in the case of Petr Matěják’s brilliant and striking playing, was a pity. Matěják is the youngest of the four-pointed star. He attracted a great deal of attention in 2012 when he triumphed in Austria’s International Johannes Brahms Competition. Josef Špaček selected as his offering the third movement of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto. From the very beginning, the concerto was a highly popular and successful piece in comparison with the Brahms violin concerto. Its final movement is a striking dramatic cyclone packed with virtuoso elements. The Czech Philharmonic’s current concertmaster is the only Czech finalist at the extremely prestigious and demanding Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and his rendition of the piece made it very clear why. In the hands of Václav Hudeček, Maurice Ravel’s Rapsodie La Tzigane writhed with irresistible passion and temperament. By contrast with his greying contemporaries, Hudeček still radiates with a fresh and captivating sparkle. Few successful artists selflessly search out, support and promote promising young colleagues – and, in today’s tough commercial world, also dangerous competitors – as he does. Such a figure is a rare example today.

The remainder of the evening was a harmonious combination of soloists. Jan Mráček and Josef Špaček performed with airy elegance Pablo de Sarasate’s Navarra for two violins like one four-handed being. We are unlikely to hear a more perfect duo doing this striking sparkler. Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in H minor for Four Violins opened up a whole new world. J.S. Bach wrote an identical piece for four harpsichords and to this day there is speculation among musicologists over who was its first composer. I prefer Vivaldi's version, a view reinforced by the four violinists. The concert concluded with Pablo de Sarasate's Gipsy Melodies, which took the form of an acrobatics show by six virtuoso stuntmen. The soloists welcomed two members of the orchestra to their number – concertmaster Vlastimil Kobrle and Anton Čonek, the most recent laureate of Hudeček's Academy in Luhačovice. Each of the six performed one part so that in the end their sound merged in the mega-sound of the virtuoso final passages. The night ended with standing ovations and cries of encore. Thanks to its informality, relaxed atmosphere and the musicians' supreme mastery, the concert was a gorgeous, refreshing part of the springtime return of the sun’s radiance and joy.