Antonin Dvorak.

Antonin Dvorak

Suite in A major, op. 98b

Josef Suk

Serenade for Strings in E flat major, op. 6, Fantastic Scherzo, op. 25

Prague Chamber Philharmonic, Jakub Hrusa. Production: Petr Vit. Text: Eng., Ger., Fr., Cz. Recorded: 7.-9. 3. and 23. 8. 2006, Studio Domovina, Prague. Released: 2006. TT: 66:11. DDD. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3882-2.

For his next profile CD (the first was devoted exclusively to Antonin Dvorak) Jakub Hrusa with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic has chosen a very natural combination: Dvorak and Suk were related on three levels at once--personally through Suk's marriage, by the teacher-pupil relationship and through affinity of musical temperament. All the works on the CD are well-known, but with the exception of Suk's Serenade they are not particularly often performed. The interpretation of the latter, however, shows that even extremely well-known pieces can be made interesting, the deposits of musical cliche stripped away and the listener compelled to listen properly. Dvorak originally wrote his Suite in A major for piano, but with his gifts and skill in instrumentation later gave it a very becoming orchestral garb. It is an intimate, undemonstrative piece, and Jakub Hrusa with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic performs it in just this spirit. The orchestra employs silken tones both overall and in the solo passages (for example the oboe in the fourth movement!); it builds the dynamics smoothly and sensitively, and all the rubatos, ritardandos and accelerandos are logical and delicate. Suk's Serenade, as has been noted, is one of those notoriously well-known pieces that some conductors situate on the border or even over the border of salon music. This us how it is played by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, for example on the Decca recording of 1996 (447109-2), with a dash of suave sentimentality, sliding tones and vibrato that Jakub Hrusa and the PCP have entirely cut out. In expression and polished details Hrusa shows himself here to be a true pupil of Jiri Belohlavek (Belohlavek's recording with the same orchestra of 1996, SU 3157-2-031), but also with his own creative originality: Hrusa's Adagio in the third movement for example is more than two minutes longer than Belohlavek's but never loses emphasis and nowhere becomes saccharine or tedious. Here too the conductor can rely on excellent string and wind sections, which respond sensitively throughout. Fantastic Scherzo was a piece that Josef Suk was later inclined to dismiss, not regarding it as the most profound of his pieces. It is far from easy to keep it together in terms of structure, and possibly it contains too much evolutionary music at the expense of genuinely elaborated ideas. These problems, however, only make one admire Hrusa's approach the more. He has managed to weld the structure together, essentially by simple and obvious methods: where other conductors bring out direct contrasts, Hrusa integrates them in dynamics and tempo. As the sharpest comparison that I can think of I would mention Charles Mackerras's recording with the Czech Philharmonic of 1999 (Decca 475 7061). Mackerras performs Suk in an almost "Janacekian" style, that is by splitting it up into small motif sections and soberly separating these off from each other. His forte passages are almost aggressive and other sections lack the quality of dance, which Hrusa on the other hand manages to bring out with lightness of touch, as well as finding typical Dvorakian-Sukian lyrical moments. Each piece meanwhile retains its individuality, and this is the real basis of the conductor's art. Jakub Hrusa is twenty-five years old and because conductors (or so they say) mature over a longer period, in such cases people usually talk of "promise". I believe that Jakub Hrusa has already fulfilled his promise, with sovereign ease. Vit Roubicek has written a fine commentary in the booklet.

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