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A vote for modern music

The energetic Berg Orchestra gets into the spirit of election season
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By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 12th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Conductor Peter Vrábel, seated center right, is an advocate of new works, particularly by Czech composers.
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Berg Orchestra


<b>When:</b> Thursday, March 13, at 7:30
<b>Where: </b>Czech National Bank hall (Senovážné nám. 30, Prague 1)
<b>Tickets: </b>100-200 Kč, available at the door
For more information, check www.berg.cz
The Berg Orchestra is opening its spring season with a great musical marketing gimmick: a contest to decide the best new work that the group premiered last year. Seven pieces by young Czech composers were chosen for the competition, which was decided by popular public vote and a professional jury of eight foreign composers.
The contest attracted more than 250 voters — a good number for any modern music event in Prague — and was close, according to Berg artistic director and conductor Peter Vrábel. “There was no single runaway winner,” he says. “With the jury alone, there were three first-place winners.”
No matter. Through a complicated vote weighting system that was a bit difficult to sort out in translation from Czech to English, a clear winner was determined, and will be performed at the group’s concert Thursday night, along with modern music works by Glass, Martinů and Honegger.
This is not the way an orchestra usually operates. But there’s little that’s typical about Berg, from the music it plays to the venues that it plays in, which have included the Světozor cinema, Museum Kampa and the city’s old sewage treatment plant (now the Ekotechnické museum). “We always try to discover something new for the audience,” Vrábel says in a classic bit of understatement.
Founded in 1995 by Vrábel, a Slovak musician who came to Prague to study bassoon and conducting at HAMU, the music academy, the orchestra started as a group of like-minded students interested in playing seldom-heard works. “It’s a shame it’s not performed more often,” is how Vrábel describes the initial programming, which dipped as far back as Baroque and Beethoven.
With a big assist from Václav Riedlbauch, managing director of the Czech Philharmonic and a modern music advocate, the Berg Orchestra kicked off a regular season schedule beginning in 2001 with Martinů-heavy programming and its signature already in place: a premiere of a new work, usually by a Czech composer, at every concert. Over time the programming became exclusively 20th-century and contemporary fare, which may seem limiting. But that’s not how Vrábel sees it.
“Up until the early 20th century, only contemporary music was played,” he says. “Then, starting in the 1920s and 1930s, it became all old music — the classics. So there’s a lot of music that’s been stored up, like food in a larder, waiting to be played.”
Still, modern music is a hard sell. Except for notable efforts like Riedlbauch’s “Prague Premieres” series at the Rudolfinum every spring (starting March 29 this year), most orchestras won’t try anything more adventurous than sandwiching an occasional modern piece between more audience-friendly fare. So what keeps the Berg Orchestra focused on new and challenging work?
Vrábel and orchestra manager Eva Kesslerová get sheepish grins on their faces and look at each other when the question is asked. “We really love the music,” Kesslerová says. “We sold it to ourselves,” Vrábel adds. “Now we want to sell it to other people.”
It helps that the orchestra is young and plays with such verve and enthusiasm, clearly enjoying the music. And the marketing, done mostly by Kesslerová, is some of the most clever and engaging in town. She put together a disc of the competition pieces that was sent out to supporters and the press earlier this year, along with comments by the composers and instructions on how to vote.
The compositions are all lively and fresh, and range across a wide variety of sounds and subject matter, from Jana Vöröšová’s Gulliver’s Travels, four movement depicting scenes and moods from the famous literary work, to Petr Wajsar’s Drum ’n’ Berg, a drum ’n’ bass adaptation for orchestra. Whichever one wins, Vrábel will go at it with the same flair that he brings to all modern music pieces.
“There is emotion in every work,” he says. “When I study the score, I try to find it and pass it along to the orchestra — and through them, to the audience.”

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


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