Interview with conductor Tomáš Brauner

Could you explain to our season-ticket holders how you first developed a love of music?

I have to go back to when I was six years old. To this day, I remember how I sat at the piano with full certainty that I would play what I heard. I considered the clusters of tones that I created (often very dissonant) to be as beautiful as what I heard in my head. A child’s imagination works brilliantly! In the beginning, I was very influenced by the musical atmosphere at home. My mother, who had a technical education, played violin and piano, and sang in the Kühn Mixed Choir. My dad Jiří Krejčí, an excellent solo oboist and a long-term member of Czech Nonet, was a great musical authority to me, though oddly enough he didn’t react enthusiastically to my wish to play the oboe. He had experience of the kind of non-musical martyrdom that an oboist has to go through preparing his instrument, so he welcomed my later decision to devote myself to conducting. I started playing the oboe at 10 and I really enjoyed it for a long time. At the same time, they broadcast on television Leonard Bernstein’s classic educational concerts with the New York Philharmonic. That programme was one of those determining moments in which I began to become drawn to conducting.

Do you still play the oboe?

I’ve got to admit, less and less. But if the chance came up, I’d go back to it.

When you started to study conducting, did you dream about a composition or opera that you’d like to conduct in the future? And has it happened?

A list of the pieces that I as a student of conducting wished to perform would take up many lines. But I’m lucky that directors and intendants of orchestras are accommodating to me and I can play a role in putting programmes together, so many wishes have been fulfilled (for instance, Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, the score of which I’d been going through already at the age of seven, or Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka). Others will become reality in the near future (Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G major, Puccini’s Tosca, etc.).

At one renowned international conducting competition, the Mitropoulos Competition 2010 in Athens, you took third prize from among over 200 adepts. At what stage of the competition did you start to believe you could be so successful?

When the finalists were announced. Every advance to another round was naturally very gratifying to me. From the start, I tried to perform as best I could and not to get distracted thinking about possible success. The very fact that a jury selects you at such a competition is a small victory. For everybody who’s taken part in a competition, the most important thing is personal preparation and above all confidence. Competitions are mentally stressful; if somebody isn’t confident you can see and hear it.

How extensive was the repertoire that you had to prepare?

The repertoire was made up of 15 pieces, for instance Bach’s baroque suites, the classicist symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, and the romantic symphonies of Brahms, or Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Others were Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun or Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.

What compositions did you draw for the final?

At the wonderful Megaron Hall for 2,700 people the Athens Orchestra of Colours and I played the overture to Rossini’s opera the Barber of Seville and Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun.

Did the competition eventually help you to find an interesting engagement?

In a certain way, yes. Immediately after my return from Athens I got an offer from the director of the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra, Lenka Kavalová, to be its principal guest conductor. The intendant of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Jan Simon, engaged me to do several radio recordings, as well as for today’s season-ticket holders’ concert. Offers came from the Prague Philharmonia, from Ostrava, Olomouc, Pardubice… I’m very glad about that, and look forward to every new encounter.

What attracts you to musical theatre?

My relationship to it has developed gradually. At 16, I set out for Vienna’s State Opera for Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods. Imagine, you have to stand for hours queuing for tickets and then you have to stand during a performance of several hours. But it was a fascinating experience for me! During my studies in Vienna I often had the chance to attend performances there. Thanks to the great productions and excellent soloist it was always hugely inspirational. Opera is big and demanding work, and doing it is a real long-distance run. All the elements that create it have to be joined properly. And it’s time consuming. If somebody is going to devote themselves to it, it has to be a great passion.

The conducting profession is demanding in general. Do you ever doubt if you’ve made the right choice?

Every profession is demanding, if you give it one hundred percent. I don’t doubt that I made the right choice. But of course, like everybody, I do occasionally have doubts – in my case, doubts of an artistic nature. If I’ve chosen the right tempo, if the balance of sound is ideal, and many other questions that every artist has to pose, if he doesn’t want to be a mere producer of music, but its creator.

What do you enjoy most about the profession? And what’s most stressful about it?

I enjoy everything that’s connected to music. Every new project, concert, performance. Creating music with musicians who are on the same wavelength as me. For me, that’s worthwhile and creative work. Sometimes moments of a different type are stressful. How for instance to make it after a performance in Ostrava to a rehearsal in Pilsen, and that evening manage a concert or performance in Prague. On top of that, I need time to study new scores. Such moments are demanding physically and in terms of time, though I personally take them as part of my profession and good training of spirit and mind.

What plans do you have for the coming seasons?

This season concerts still await me with the Prague Philharmonia and the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as two opera premieres. The first is taking place in the State Opera in Prague – it will be a concert performance of Ambroise Thomas’s opera Mignon. In Pilsen will be Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda with Eva Urbanová in the title role. I’ve got invitations for next season to Pardubice, Olomouc, Ostrava. But it’s all in the planning stages, so I won’t tempt fate…