BRAVO GLUZMAN!

Ingenious Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman charmed the audience of the final concert of the 19^th year of IMF Cesky Krumlov by his interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s D-major concert on Saturday, August 21. It took place in the hall of the Castle Riding Hall and legendary violinist Leopold Auer, whose instrument Gluzman played and to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated the concert would certainly have felt sorry for his evaluation of the allegedly “unplayable” part. Vadim Gluzman managed to meet both technical and expressive parts of this work. The loveable tone, lovely cantilena, unbelievable lightness even in the fastest tone runs simply took everyone’s breath. Gluzman however was not just a dry technician, this virtuoso from Ukraine managed to draw even the softest details of this concert – from the soft lyricism, wistful melancholy, melodic juiciness to Slavic earthly fullness. Gluzman’s performance charmed the festival audience so much that standing ovations followed spontaneously almost immediately as the last tone of the composition faded away. The Symphonic Orchestra of the Czech Radio can be appreciated too as it showed a very focused performance under Spanish conductor Jose Miguel Rodilla. The very finale of the nineteenth year of the festival was Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony – work of psychical ease, balance and heroic power telling us about beauties of the nature, magic of a spring morn as well as simple joy of life. SOCR managed to present one of the jewels of Czech music with needed sound richness, contrasting palette of moods, reasonable drama, and popular dancing character and it depicted the solely Czech character of the work just like a Czech orchestra should. Rodilla, conducting by heart, thus led with his simple and elegant gestures not only the Saturday’s night but the entire 19^th year of the festival to the finale.

And what is Vadim Gluzman’s attitude to the Tchaikovsky’s concert?

For me, this is certainly one of the most popular concerts of all violin literature that has an unbelievable interpretation tradition. I, however, always feel a great responsibility whenever I play such a masterful piece on a stage but at the same time I am extremely excited by the playing itself. Tchaikovsky composed this concert for Leopold Auer who, unfortunately, refused to play it. It is fatal that today I play this concert on a Stradivari violin that belonged to Auer and that I have borrowed for today from the Stradivari Society in Chicago. That makes this piece even more specific for me. And although I’ve played this concert countless times all around the world, I always look forward to a new opportunity to play Tchaikovsky very much.

19^th year of IMF CESKY KRUMLOV IN ITS PRESIDENT’S EYES

The 19^th year of IMF Cesky Krumlov is over. What is your impression from its course and fresh results?

My overall impression from the festival is that what I expected of this year, as far as concerts, numbers of visitors, and participation of guests, has come true. What I did not expect and what we had to deal with was weather. When we planned thirteen open-air concerts and performances, I thought we would be a little more successful with weather than we were but on the other hand I have to appreciate very positively how we, audiences, and the artists handled this misfortune. I believe that especially the concert of Broadway musicals deserves an absolute admiration because people did not give it up and they enjoyed the concert. My evaluation is therefore positive and I am content with how visitors perceive the festival, with their numbers because you can hear there is some financial crisis among people but we did not notice it at the festival this or last year. The prestige of the festival is proven among others by the fact that, in the first place, President Vaclav Klaus and his wife visited it and so did other important guests including the Prime Minister and other government members. I’d therefore like to say that it was a very successful appetizer for the 20^th year.

You said before the beginning of this year that the development of the festival can be compared to climbing stairs in a five-story building and you feel that the festival is roughly in the second floor. How did the 19^th year affect this state?

As far as what the festival has brought is considered, I think that we’ve made another step up. I am not going to say how big the step was because only the history will show how big it really was but the festival has certainly not stagnated, certainly has not declined, has not skipped anything that it would have to return to and perhaps the complicated days related to bad weather actually just got us even closer together and they proved the strength of the organization team and people who come here. The artists proved that the prestige that they receive forces them to show their performance even in conditions that there are on the given day.

Looking aside from your professional view of the president of the festival, which concert did you like the most personally and which gave you the biggest artistic experience?

The fact that we are a multi-genre festival makes it hard to pick just one concert. If we had just classical concerts, it would probably be easier. Of course, the name of tenor Jose Cura will be written with golden letters in the annals of the festival but, I believe, so will the names of Christiane Noll, James Morrison, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Gluzman, or Aris Argiris. The opening is always exceptional for a president of a festival and he cannot actually really enjoy the concert itself and therefore the second Jose Cura’s concert was probably the artistic peak for me. But in terms of other genres, I would hate to forget for example Pavel Sporcl with the gypsy band. We have concerts of various genres and each of them has a different ambition so they can be appreciated just by how they meet them. I think that, after all, all concerts were artistically balanced.

In the framework of the 19^th year of IMF Cesky Kurmlov there were 16 concerts and 6 opera performances at 4 different places in the city of Cesky Krumlov between July 16 and August 21. A total of 3 orchestras, 10 chamber orchestras and bands, 1 choir, and 8 solo singers, 13 solo instrumentalists and 3 conductors from all around the world performed at the festival. 14,500 visitors came to the festival and the number of visitors was higher than 90 percent of total capacity of concert venues. Argentinean tenor Jose Cura became the face of this year of the festival. He sold out the Brewery Gardens in Cesky Krumlov twice and his concerts earned an extremely positive feedback and are written with golden letters in the history of the festival. Other peaks of the festival included performances of legendary violinist Gidon Kremer and Kremarata Baltica, violinist Vadim Gluzman and a number of other interpreters. As far as other genres are considered, let’s remember the shining Broadway Night, a performance of jazz multi-instrumentalist James Morrison or Pavel Sporcl with his cymbal band Romano Stilo.

The anniversary 20^th year of IMF Cesky Krumlov will take place between July 15 and August 20, 2011. As far as its dramaturgy is considered, a huge celebration is being prepared and it will attract a number of music stars of the top quality category to the Czech Republic. The exact program of the festival will be published in the fall this year.