Interview with pianist and PRSO director Jan Simon

We haven’t seen you on stage at the Dvořák Hall with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in some time. Have you cut back on doing concerts or do you only work with your “domestic” ensemble?

Cutting back on doing concerts was something I wanted to avoid when I entered the service of Czech Radio. It was the idealism of a 35-year-old, and to this day I recall with a smile a talk I had with Jiří Bělohlávek very soon after I accepted the position of administrative director of the PRSO. I started to speak on the subject at the place of a mutual friend, the artist Jiří Voves, and Jiří looked at me intently and said: “You know, I think your playing will go to the dogs”. (It’s not an exact quotation – the original was more forceful and earthier). Of course to someone of my nature the statement was a red rag to a bull and I reacted by resolving to not let up in the intensity of my piano work. Man proposes, life disposes – and it’s an indubitable fact that in particular periods it’s been very tough sticking to my regular quota of rehearsing and doing concerts if I am to fulfil my commitments to Czech Radio and its symphony orchestra. It has been very demanding in particular since I took on other activities linked to the live arts at this institution. Nevertheless, the events of last autumn have steered me towards intensifying my concert activities in parallel with the administration and leadership of the PRSO.

In music itself you find everything that the human spirit requires. Emotion, rationality, passion, depression, desire, tension, release, drudgery and rest. Music is a phenomenon that, if you want, will accompany you throughout your life. I have performed and still perform concerts not just domestically but also abroad, and the number with the PRSO has been fewer, intentionally, in recent years. I think that is understandable of the position of ensemble director.

Does it really feel different when you accompany “your” PRSO musicians and those from other orchestras?

Yes. You’re on stage with colleagues with whom you frequently work in dimensions far removed from actual music. An increased sense of responsibility also plays a role. What’s more, in the everyday running of an orchestra conflict situations arise, albeit born out of a shared interest in achieving artistic goals. From the perspective of the uninformed observer we’re standing on opposite sides of an imaginary barricade. And just at those moments when opinions polarise, we have to say to one another that what’s at issue is a common goal, that we want to deliver the greatest beauty that we can to listeners in a concert hall or by a radio receiver. It’s hard to get “management traces” out of your head completely when you find yourself on stage not as director but as a musician. I have the great fortune that the PRSO comprises great musicians whom I respect immensely. They’re the ones who through their art help me to push management out of my mind for those moments and concentrate on the piece being performed. You don’t have such feelings when you guest at other ensembles. You come, you rehearse, you play and you think about the next concert.

How were the preparations for today’s performance? As far as I know, you performed the Brahms about a month ago in Mariánské Lázně. Has that helped reinforce your sense of assurance at the Dvořák Hall?

That piece has a special position in my repertoire. It belongs at the imaginary peak not only of the piano literature but of music in general. I don’t regard it as a classic virtuoso exhibition concerto for piano and orchestra. It’s an enormous symphony of unending dialogue between orchestra and piano. There are moments when the solo instrument merely creates colour to amplify what the orchestra is doing and the thoughts contained in the music itself. The last time I performed the concerto was in the middle of the 2000s and after 10 years I’ve decided to return to it. You won’t dust off the Concerto in B major in a few days or weeks – not just because of its technical demands, but because of the depth of its content in terms of thought. Since the 10-year break I’ve played it in Žilina and Košice as well as Mariánské Lázně. Naturally every performance reinforces the assurance of the interpreter. On the other hand, it would be degrading to define those performances as a kind of pre-premiere. Neither Brahms nor the audience deserve that. And trust me, all of the orchestras I’ve played that concerto with in the last month have performed it with enormous gusto.

Fifty minutes of intense playing… When did you actually resolve to study Brahms’ Second?

It’s a long story. I first encountered the piece at the start of the 1980s during the Prague Spring. I believe it was the Polish pianist Piotr Paleczny who performed it at the Smetana Hall. At the time the composition struck me as fiercely long and difficult. It didn’t leave me with any other strong impression. Then in 1985 I was at a competition in Spain and I bought a recording with Krystian Zimerman at a record shop. It was like a bolt from the blue and I was intoxicated by both the piece itself and the rendition. The discovery that Zimerman recorded this magnum opus at 28 fascinated me even more. I was 19 and didn’t feel ready for such a task. Nevertheless, I promised myself that I’d tackle the piece by the time I was 28. And it happened – a month before my 28th birthday I performed the concerto in public for the first time. I don’t know today whether well or badly, but I performed it.

Which rendition has made the biggest impression on you?

Zimerman is still out in front. He and Sviatoslav Richter are for me out in front in a number of works by many composers. And I was glad that I could have my opinion confirmed during last year’s Dvořák Prague, when Zimerman performed Brahms’ First Concerto. It was amazing.

What will your Brahms be like?

Definitely different than in 1994. How? In what way? That I don’t dare predict.

What composer do you have “in your sights” in the near future?

These days my second favourite is in perpetuity – I’m talking about Chopin and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in E minor. What’s more, I’m rehearsing for a Chopin festival in Krakowiak in the summer. In Bucharest I’m going to perform Mozart’s Concerto in A major K. 414 and at the Český Krumlov festival Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra with Václav Hudeček. One thing that gives me immense pleasure is a project to record Bohuslav Martinů’s works for piano and orchestra. With my colleagues Igor Ardašev, Ivo Kahánek, Martin Kasík, Václav Mácha, Miroslav Sekera, Adam Skoumal and Daniel Wiesner we’re recording his five piano concertos, the Concertino and the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra with the PRSO and conductor Tomáš Brauner under the wing of Czech Radio, its label Radioservis and the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation. Martinů’s Second awaits me. But also on the agenda are the final Mozart Concerto in B major, Gershwin, and Rachmaninov’s Sonata, as well as Debussy with cellist Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, a Clara Schumann piano concerto, and more. I have to and want to manage that before my fiftieth. And one more project – Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partitas. The summer will be busy and my neighbours are going to enjoy a lot of piano.

Please allow a few more questions for the PRSO director. The end of the 2014/15, in which the PRSO brought a new concert series at the Municipal House to life, is already in sight. How do you rate the new series? Has it made the kind of impact you hoped for and imagined?

When we were introducing “New Horizons” – the second PRSO season-ticket holders’ series at the Municipal House – we made no secret of either our enthusiasm or our worries. Prague has an incredibly rich musical portfolio and introducing another choice might have been a self-destructive plan. On the other hand, we felt the lack of the broadest possible choice when it came to a close encounter between classic concert literature and musical formations that are present in various ways in our everyday lives. It seemed to me that we weren’t doing enough to address those who are less in the know, or perhaps as yet untouched, among potential listeners. And I don’t mean that in any pejorative sense.

Concerts and public dress rehearsals, if they take place, are wonderfully attended, though we put a lot of effort into promotion. Engaging Lucie Výborná and Jan Pokorný to MC was definitely a stroke of luck. This untraditional connection is effective and I believe that, in conjunction with the heavy communication of these concerts via Radiožurnál (alongside the regular announcements on Vltava and Dvojka), this series has a future thanks to its content and focus. And I’m very glad that despite the unusual nature of the concerts’ format, including live MCing on stage, Czech Radio Vltava broadcasts these concerts live.

We’re currently announcing pre-sale dates for the new season. But tell us more about planned concerts and invited artists?

Alongside principal conductor Ondrej Lenárd, honorary principal conductor Vladimír Válek and principal guest conductor Tomáš Brauner, audiences will encounter Libor Pešek, Jan Kučera, Marek Šedivý and Jiří Petrdlík. We’re also inviting Vojtěcha Spurný – and a heads up, his concert including Ryba’s Christmas mass will take at the Bethlehem Chapel, for that real Christmas atmosphere. Foreign conductors like Tiberiu Soare and Christian Vásquez will also appear. Solos will be performed by the likes of Aleš Bárta, Jan Mráček, Petr Matěják, Stefan Vladar and Martin Kasík. And we’ll also have for instance the Epoque Quartet and Clarinet Factory, the actors Bára Štěpánová and Jan Šťastný, rapper Oto Klempíř in Shakespeare’s Sonnets… There’s also a Concerto for Bandoneon and Orchestra on the programme. And we’ll hear Dvořák’s Requiem performed by Slovak singers under the baton of principal conductor Ondrej Lenárd, who from the 2015/2016 season is, like principal guest conductor Tomáš Brauner, confirmed in that position until the end of the 2016/2017 season.

Will you keep the hitherto ticket pricing structure?

Unless the situation surrounding rent at the Rudolfinum changes dramatically, we’re not going to change the season-tickets for “Classics with Refinement”. Within “New Horizons” we’re going to maintain the season-ticket structure and with individual concert tickets I’m mulling over price differentiation related to the production demands of individual programmes.

In the summer you usually tour the country and abroad. What specifically awaits the PRSO in the coming months?

It’s simple. After the end of the season-ticket holders’ season the PRSO will perform twice at the Prague Spring and at Ostrava’s Janáček May festival, and because it’s an odd year, we’re heading to Japan for 11 concerts with Ondrej Lenárd, from 17 June to 6 July. Then we’ll again fulfil the role of orchestra in residence at the Český Krumlov IMF. And then perhaps a holiday…