Tomáš Brauner on violins, Václav Hudeček and upcoming projects with the PRSO

Violins will be centre-stage at Municipal House on 30 March. Could you express the feelings or recall the sensations and experiences associated with the instrument for you?

I am forever realising how multifarious violins can be. For me they’re the perfect instrument, incredibly malleable and onomatopoeic. How colour and strength of tone can be transformed on them! They present a whole range of ways to create tone or the sounds required by the score of the piece. At the same time, I admire the virtuosity of violinists who forge a successful career domestically or internationally. But more than anything I associate the instrument with my beautiful wife, a violinist.

If our countrymen are able to instantly name a well-known violinist it is thanks to Václav Hudeček. Do you remember when you first came across him?

As a small boy I loved and was forever playing a vinyl LP of the violin concertos of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Jean Sibelius, with none other than Václav Hudeček. For me it’s an unsurpassed recording.

I expect you’ve worked together previously. On what occasions?

Yes. Three years I encountered not only Václav Hudeček but other wonderful musicians who we will hear at the Municipal House – Petr Matěják, Jan Mráček and Josef Špaček – at the Prague Music Festival. I’m very pleased about that and I genuinely value the fact that Václav and I have been friends since then and have done a number of performances together.

The 14/15 season has brought you the title – and in particular the work! – of principal guest conductor of the PRSO. What have you achieved together?

The opening concert of a new PRSO season-ticket holder’s series at the Municipal House subtitled “New Horizons”, a concert with Štefan Kocán, Václav Hudeček and Jitka Hosprová at the Rudolfinum, and a pre-Christmas “Bizet Gala” with the singers Jolana Fogašova, Svatopluk Sem and Richard Samek at the Congress Centre.

Which of your upcoming projects represent pleasant tasks for you? Which are real challenges?

One particularly large project is keeping me busy – and fulfilled – these days. The PRSO and I have begun recording the complete piano concertos of Bohuslav Martinů with leading Czech pianists. It’s a demanding job planned out over the entire year (incidentally, every “Martinů” is a great challenge to directors). Hopefully the work will go well and we’ll be able to look forward to the results in the form of a CD that ought to come out at the close of 2015.