PRSO’s New Horizons: Initial signs very promising

In recent days, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra has undertaken a dual start to the new season. Following Mozart’s Requiem and Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration with Ondrej Lenárd at the Rudolfinum last Monday, this week it has been the turn of New Horizons, a brand new concert series at the Municipal House intended – after a slimming-down of the hitherto traditional season-ticket holders’ series – to attract new listeners to the PRSO. In this day and age in particular this is no easy task, in view of the increasing glut on the metropolis’ concert market where, to exaggerate slightly, hardly an evening passes without some Prague orchestra performing. Despite this, the opening concert of the PRSO’s new series at the Smetana Hall was full, although among the audience – comprising seniors, the more laidback middle generation and a large number of young people, often informally attired – there were many employees of public service radio, present to support their orchestra. And why not? The most important thing was the surprisingly positive reaction that literally radiated from the audience at the Smetana Hall, despite the evening’s slightly hard to digest menu. Indeed, calls of bravo and enthusiastic whistling were heard.

First: At whom is the new PRSO concert season aimed? Those whose experience as listeners is atypical, who are not regular classical concert goers, but who have reached an age where they are starting to search for abiding values though they have yet to define them precisely. That is at least how the orchestra’s intendant Jan Simon has put it. At the same time, the orchestra doesn’t wish to pander to the “new” audience but rather to serve it an original mix of the traditional and a somewhat unusual repertoire. It will do so through music that even the biggest Philistine will know (on the first evening principally Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, although in an early version for big band, while three dance episodes from Bernstein’s On the Town also represented the catchy and “popular”), as well as scores with the potential to win over listeners that, however, do not feature in “traditional” symphonic concerts (in this case, a selection of three parts of Hnilička’s Jazz Mass, as well as Sanctus from Requiem for the Dead for Those to Whom Music Was Their Life by Ladislav Simon). Everything was topped off by an original premiere (Tokyo Pulsing by Jan Kučera, a piece of roughly 10 minutes written especially for the PRSO and the Radio Big Band) and, last but not least, what was likely the most demanding number of the evening for listeners – Jolivet’s Second Trumpet Concerto.

The result? It is impossible to tell precisely how it came across on radio receivers (Vltava naturally carried a live broadcast). However, in the hall it was surprisingly fresh, with a major dose of positive energy spilling over to the perceptive audience. That can be attributed not only to the aforementioned consummately mixed programme, but also to the evening’s soloists – the technically brilliant Adam Skoumal on piano (though his Gershwin could have been perhaps a tad more extrovert), the excellent trumpeter Marek Zvolánek, whose polished Jolivet was genuinely breathtaking, and the promising Michaela Gemrotová, with a nasal, full and simultaneously youthful-sounding timbre of soprano solo in the Simon piece that was, in my view, without doubt at least as good as Lucie Bílá in the premiere of the opus in the mid 1990s.

Alongside the PRSO, the Gustav Brom Czech Radio Big Band also played with obvious relish, while the Kühn Mixed Choir under choirmaster Marek Vorlíček (Hnilička, Simon) also acquitted themselves too.

Naturally the main star of the evening was Tomáš Brauner, from this season chief guest conductor of the PRSO, whose markedly supple hands delivered inspirational gestures, completely at ease in often rhythmically difficult compositions (Bernstein, Kučera), with impressive dynamism and contrasts of tempo (Gershwin) and clear potential for further growth. A composer whose engagement the orchestra’s management must be congratulated on.

The evening’s two MCs also deserve a special mention. Lucie Výborná and Jan Pokorný appeared as well-known radio faces, deliberately not overly knowledgeable but rather commenting “from the outside” on events on stage and the actual programme (and presenting the live broadcast for radio listeners). A good idea, though I think only half-realised. The content of particular parts could have been polished (though an interview on the theme of the pentatonic scale with the present Jan Kučera in connection with the premiere of his piece was scintillating, Pokorný in particular could drop the superficial filler sentences), while the arrangement also merits reassessment (why have the presenters leave the hall when they would sound far more natural if they were placed among the audience?).

In summary: an extremely refreshing evening with a very cleverly put together and excellently executed programme, utterly different from what is available on our contemporary concert market. And that counts for a lot. A rather high bar for the next five New Horizons evenings. Time will tell how many new listeners it will attract to the PRSO. However, the initial prognosis does seem rather positive.

Reviewer’s rating: 85 %