Review: Czech National Symphony Orchestra

Another year, another ridiculously talented young performer, another valuable home-produced export; so there is no musical recession at any rate.

Charlie Siem played Bruch's First Violin Concerto as easily as if it were some trifle to be touted round a Prague restaurant by a gypsy violinist: let's hope that he will return soon and play something more demanding.

The two sources of the Vltava flowing through their well-worn banks began the concert though, Libor Pesek conducting it from its serene opening through the turbulent rapids and on into the distance.

The fourth, less familiar, tone poem from Smetana's Ma Vlast, From Bohemia's Meadows and Forests is worth an airing if only for the fugue that was given a finely pointed performance here.

Then, thank goodness it wasn't Dvorak's Ninth again. No, it was the Eighth, a far superior affair, where the composer's lapses into clich only happen occasionally and are outweighed by the work's originality.

The orchestra raised their game, playing with energy and passion.

Indeed the brass occasionally forced the tone, but in the final movement, drama is everything and Pesek captured the heroic mood.