Semyon Bychkov conducts through pain in celebrating Year of Czech Music with North American tour

NEW YORK — (AP) — Eva Krestová remembered Semyon Bychkov’s first rehearsal as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, leading Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” symphony.

“I was shaking,” the viola leader recalled of that day in Prague’s Rudolfinum. “He smiled at me and from this moment, I knew that I can do it. He told me very nice words after — he told me that this is exactly what my viola section needs.”

Celebrating the end of the 100th anniversary Year of Czech Music, an event held every decade in the year ending in 4, Bychkov is conducting through pain in leading the Czech Philharmonic on a North American tour to New York and Toronto.

He had lumbar decompression surgery in September after finishing the new production of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" at the Bayreuth Festival and the 72-year-old was limping slightly at Carnegie Hall this week, holding a podium railing and music stands for support as he walked on and off stage.

He used a crutch on his left arm immediately after Thursday night's performance during a reception with Czech Republic President Petr Pavel and is to have a hip replacement after the tour.

Czech composers have a connection to years ending in 4. Bedřich Smetana was born in 1824 and died in 1884, Leoš Janáček was born in 1854 and Antonín Dvořák died in 1904. Bychkov's tour programs features that trio plus Gustav Mahler, born in what is now the Czech Republic.

Bychkov said the music is innately part of his musicians. He cited the Vltava (Moldau) section of Smetana’s “Má vlast (My country),” which premiered in 1875.

“They were still playing from the original parts. I mean, you can hardly see the notes,” he said.

Bychkov caused panic in the orchestra when he introduced a new critical edition.

“He really thinks about every single note and he wants preciseness and he wants really that everything is perfect,” said Jana Boušková, the harp leader since 2005.

Bychkov was born in Leningrad to Jewish parents and his family left Russia for Vienna in 1974, then settled in the U.S. one year later. He attended the Mannes School of Music and got to know Julius Rudel, New York City Opera's general director. Bychkov became music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra from 1980-85, gaining U.S. citizenship.

Bychkov made his Berlin Philharmonic debut on Jan. 8, 1985, as a replacement for Riccardo Muti. On June 1, 1969, Bychkov was arrested while he and three friends tried to sneak through an open window into a Berlin Phil concert in Leningrad led by Herbert von Karajan.

"I ended up in the ladies room and a lady was there. I was trying to convince her that it was not her I was interested in but van Karajan, which was adding insult to an injury. So she yelled and the police was just outside,” Bychkov said, adding he quickly was released. “What would they do with me in the end? It wasn’t political. I was not an agent of foreign influence.”

A few weeks after his Berlin debut, Bychov returned to the Philharmonie when Eugen Jochum canceled, and Bychkov met van Karajan for the first time.

“At some point he said, `So you’re in Grand Rapids now?‘” Bychkov remembered. “I said, yes, I’m in Grand Rapids. I said, this is my Ulm, because that was the place that he started, and he laughed like crazy. He said, `You’re so right. A few years of that and you’re ready for anything.‘”

Bychkov succeeded Rudel as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985-89. He then took similar roles at the Orchestre de Paris from 1989-98 and the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, Germany, from 1997-2010.

He first conducted the Czech Philharmonic in 2013, filling an opening caused by a late cancellation, and Decca Records asked him the following year to record a Tchaikovsky symphony cycle with the orchestra. Following the death of chief conductor Jirí Belohlávek in 2017, Bychkov was appointed to the role starting in 2018-19.

Bychkov was in Prague as a guest conductor when Josef Špaček, one of the first concertmasters, entered his dressing room following a performance.

“I’m still sweaty and haven’t even changed,” Bychkov said. “He said, `You bring the best in us and we’d like you to be our next music director and we want you to be our daddy.’ I had absolutely no thoughts of accepting any permanent position since I left Cologne in 2013 but when he said, ‘We want you to be our daddy,’ how can you say no to 124 orphans?”

A chain-smoker off stage, Bychkov is elegant on the podium with balletic side-to-side arm sweeps, wearing loose black clothes resembling pajamas, his bushy gray hair accentuated by the lights. His tenure will have spanned a decade by the time he leaves at the end of 2027-28.

He lives on the French Basque coast with his second wife, pianist Marielle Labèque. Bychkov’s favorite airport is in Biarritz.

“Why? Because when I arrive, 15 minutes later I’m in my house,” he said.

It’s also the one he hates most.

“Because every time I leave, I’m depressed.”