Czech Philharmonic ⬩ Semyon Bychkov

Detlev Glanert regards live music as an irreplaceable, magical merger of the energy flowing between the audience and the performers. According to him, the composer is a medium through whom the world passes, who at a certain point should disappear behind the work, making space for shared experience. Once the music has ended, listeners can remember the composer again.

Semyon Bychkov, for many years a friend of Detlev Glanert, regularly remembers the composer when planning programmes. In 2022, the chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic led a performance at the Rudolfinum of Glanert’s Prague Symphony, written on commission for Maestro Bychkov. According to Glanert, no composer could ask for a better or more conscientious advocate for their works. He also speaks highly of his collaborations with the orchestra players: “My experience with the Czech Philharmonic has been truly remarkable: they don’t just play new music accurately—they bring out its soul, its very essence.”

A significant part of Semyon Bychkov’s journey has been shaped by his lifelong interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, dating back to his childhood: “I played his piano music, I read everything I could find on him, including his letters. It was an obsession. And then I found myself at the Leningrad Conservatory, the youngest of all the conductors, and the other students were looking at me as if I was a baby brother. And they told me, very nicely, that one day I would grow out of my love of Rachmaninoff. I could never understand why I would want to!!”

Maestro Bychkov’s favourite compositions by Rachmaninoff include the Second Symphony (1907), “which of course is a very different Rachmaninoff, a young man with absolutely crazy talent. The orchestration is extraordinary: everything is overblown, yet I don’t care, because I think a man of that age is supposed to overdo things. It would be a pity to see someone so young acting old and wise. Yet when he did write, he was absolutely clear how he wanted music to be, regardless of what anyone else was doing. I’m full of admiration for that, because it takes a lot of courage.”