Next week, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic open the 80th anniversary edition of Prague Spring with a performance of Smetana’s Má vlast. Their recording of the work was last month awarded BBC Music Magazine’s Orchestral Recording 2025 and, as Semyon Bychkov remarked at the time of the recording: the Czech Philharmonic musicians have been playing this music since before they were born. So, when we finally played it together, it was an enormous emotion, extremely interesting, extremely enriching. And now that we have lived with it for some time, performed it together, recorded it together, it has become a blend of the Má vlast of the Czech Philharmonic and the Má vlast of Semyon Bychkov – which is the way it should be when music is made collectively.
2025 marks Bychkov’s return to Prague Spring for the first time in 27 years and, in addition to conducting Má vlast to open the Festival, he will conduct the Czech Philharmonic in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 as the closing concert of the Festival. For those unable to attend the performances in Prague, the Czech Philharmonic’s recording of the three poems: Vseryhrad, Vltava and Šárka conducted by Bychkov and streamed from its Carnegie Hall concert last December are currently available on Carnegie Hall +