Revealing Shostakovich's Secrets

Semyon conducts the Fifth Symphony and Cello Concerto No 1 with Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Semyon Bychkov: shattering Shostakovich with the Czech Philharmonic Picture © Mark Allan

Since Semyon Bychkov took over as chief conductor and artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic in 2018, the venerable mid-European orchestra has undertaken an energetic schedule of touring. The international market was initially made aware of this powerful partnership by an acclaimed ‘Tchaikovsky Project’, which resulted in Decca recordings of all seven symphonies (including the un-canonical ‘Manfred’) and five of his works for solo instrument and orchestra. Subsequently, with Pentatone, they recorded Czech music - Dvorak’s last three symphonies and Smetana’s Má Vlast, this orchestra’s signature work.

For their most recent London appearances (two concerts on consecutive nights at the Barbican Hall), they brought, first, a pairing of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 1 and his Fifth Symphony, and second, a programme culminating in the Fifth Symphony of a composer much admired by Shostakovich - Mahler, born in Bohemia when Prague was one of the capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I had to miss this concert, in which Mahler was paired with a Bychkov ‘party piece’, Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos and orchestra K.365 with his wife Marielle Labèque and her sister Katia as soloists.