Checking out a Czech concert

What country in the world can take pride in having elected to the presidency a poet-playwright-essayist and one of the leading intellectual figures and moral forces of our time?

The country is the Czech Republic. The man, Vaclav Havel.

A Universal Man in an age of specialization, President Havel says that his works deal with the power of language to interfere with clear thought.

There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance. Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity, both in others and in ourselves. A good mind. A modest certainty about the meaning of things. Gratitude for the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it. Vigilance of spirit (This excerpt comes from his speech upon receiving the Open Society Prize awarded by the Central European University in 1959).

As a man of letters and statesman, President Havel knows well the power of language:

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

And of arts and artists, he states:

There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks the truth. Thus from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideals the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideals at all.

Recently the Czech Republic and the Philippines had a cultural exchange of musical artists to cement the friendship between the two nations. The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra concluded its European tour with a concert in Prague, personally sponsored by President Havel. In turn, the Suk Chamber Orchestra, one of the most respected string ensembles in Eastern Europe, performed at the CCP Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino. It was significant that the two concerts were held at the time when the Czechs were celebrating their National Day.

The welcome address of CCP President Nestor O. Jardin touched on the significance of the visit to Manila of the Czech string ensemble at the time when there is unrest in the world as a consequence of the terrorist attacks against the United States. "Despite the recent tragedies and horrors, we share our love for music and remember that in that love there is still much that is beautiful in this world and in the human spirit."

His Excellency Ambassador of the Czech Republic Stanislav Slavicky affirmed the significance of the concert in the light of his country’s celebration of its National Day but also dedicated it to the victims of the "American tragedy, an attack against the whole of human civilization."

The elegiac tone of the speeches carried over to the opening number of the concert, Adagio and Fugue in G minor for Strings and Continuo by Franstisek Xaver Richter (1709-1789). The Suk Chamber Orchestra rendered this solemn piece with an air of authority over a composition that represented a fine example of Czech Baroque music, working out the intricate counterpoint with graceful ease.

To lift the spirit and dispel the pall of Richter’s mournful Adagio, the ensemble from Prague plunged into La Primavera ("Spring"), the first part of The Four Seasons for Violin, Strings and Continuo, Op. 8, by the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). (The question of what the best-known work of an Italian composer is doing in a program of Czech music can be explained by the fact that the cycle of concertos was dedicated to one Count Morzini who ruled over West Bohemia.). Tenuous as the tie might be, the SCO gave it the heart along with the soul and virtuosity–of Chinese violinist Jue Yao.

Spring has come back again, and joyously

The birds salute him with their merry song;

And streams, by zephyr’s gentle breath set free,

With a sweet murmur swiftly flow along.

Like winged cherubs and cupids sporting in the air, the notes of Ms. Yao’s violin flew in gleeful chase with those of concertmaster Martin Kos’ violin, Tomas Strasil’s cello and Jaroslav Prikryl’s harpsichord, with the rest of the orchestra joining in with vim and vigor.

Utterly charmed, if not entranced, the audience listened to the sounds of L’Estate ("Summer"):

In the dry season, scorched by the sun’s fierce rays…

Of L’Autumno ("Autumn"):

Now country folk delight to celebrate

Their fruitful harvesting with dance and song…

And of L’Inverno ("Winter")

To shuffle shivering down the snowy street,

Pierced to the bone by the wind’s keen biting breath.

The Four Seasons is atmospheric-pictorial music in the idiom of Italian Baroque in which Vivaldi dispensed with language and employed instrumental timbres and tone colors for nature description.

When the audience clamored for encores, Ms. Yao and the SCO obliged with a more impassioned reprise of two of the most exciting parts of the work such that the young soloist was carried away as much as her listeners and she wheezed through her breath and stomped on the stage floor with her heels, which nobody minded at all. One can credit that display to "expression."

Ms. Yao, before playing her first encore, the second movement of "Winter," revealed that her violin was given to her by her mentor, the legendary virtuoso Isaac Stern, who first played the instrument when he was 17. Her first encore she dedicated to the master. With her fiery account of her second encore, the finale to "Summer," she proved in no uncertain terms that the gift was not given in vain.

The second half of the concert included Meditation on the Old Bohemian Choral St. Wenceslas by Josef Suk (1874-1935) and Serenade for Strings in E Major, Op.22, by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904).

The first is a devotional work that expresses the faith of a nation which received Roman Catholicism from Greek missionaries in 863. It may be added as a footnote that the Czech capital is the original home of the Santo Niño de Praga who has many devotees among Filipinos today.

Dvorak is universally acknowledged as the greatest Czech composer. His nine symphonies which include the celebrated Ninth ("From the New World") concertos, operas, chamber music and dances are among the finest expression of the romantic movement. His melodies, rich with the folklore and natural beauty of his fatherland, its mountains, plains, valleys, and historic rivers, never fail to enchant the musical ear.

The E Major Serenade, a youthful work, was played by the Suk Chamber Orchestra with an authentic flair that expressed most devoutly the love of these musicians for their homeland. Their concert in Manila, "A Jewel of Music from the Czech Republic," their admirers and friends here are not likely to forget.

Their President, Vaclav Havel, also has much to teach us Filipinos about the science of government:

True politics, worthy of the name–and the only kind I will practice–is the politics of service to one’s neighbor. Service to the community–service to those who will succeed us. Its origin is moral because it is nothing but responsibility realized toward all and by all. It is such responsibility that in itself constitutes superior responsibility by the fact that it is based in metaphysics; it is nourished by certitude, conscious or unconscious, that nothing ends by death that all is recorded forever, all is appraised elsewhere, somewhere "above us" in what I have called the memory of being, in that part which is inseparable from the mysterious order of the cosmos, of nature, and of life, which believers call God, and to whose judgment all are subject.

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For comments and suggestions, e-mail jessqcruz@hotmail.com.