British conductor with Kammerphilharmonie Bremen at Prague Spring 2002
The Prague Spring international music festival has entered its third - and last - week, and on Sunday, the Smetana Hall at the Art-Nouveau Municipal House in Prague hosted the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with British conductor Trevor Pinnock. Alena Skodova spoke with him at a press conference he gave before the concert.
Trevor Pinnock is internationally recognized as a period instrument performer, harpsichord soloist and conductor. But as he told journalists, this was his first visit to Prague:
"It's really a very great pleasure for me to be here in Prague. Amazingly, although I seem to have given concerts in most places, this is the first time that I come to Prague, so it's very exciting for me to be in this city and come to this beautiful hall."
Mr. Pinnock was in Prague to conduct the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen from Germany, which played Stravinsky, Mozart and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. The Kammerphilharmonie is one of many orchestras that under Mr. Pinnock's baton scored immense success on stage and in recording studios alike. What does Mr. Pinnock think is behind their success?
"Decisions of style and what instruments to use and all historical aspects - what we call performance practice - is something that we as musicians, we must decide. What I hope when we perform to the public or in making recordings, I hope that the public hear in general just the music, they don't need to hear all the decisions behind, that's our business. So I hope that the success of recordings which I've made is because people hear how much I love the music. And so they can feel a simple path to the music."
Finally I asked Mr. Pinnock if he had played or conducted music by Czech composers as well?
"I think that apart from doing of course with orchestra in the past some Dvorak, I never really did Czech music, and this is something I should probably discover. So I'm almost ashamed to admit my ignorance."
Mr. Pinnock added, though, that he could feel Prague's special atmosphere, and that this was his first, but certainly not the last visit to the Czech Republic.
