Conductor Jakub Hrusa makes Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra debut

Editor’s note: Maestro Jakub Hrusa has withdrawn as conductor of this weekend’s concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in order to return to his family in the Czech Republic, as a result of that government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Daniel Meyer will conduct this weekend’s concerts, which will continue as scheduled with soloist Alina Ibragimova, in her Pittsburgh Symphony debut.

Some concerts string together various appealing pieces of music, but the Pittsburgh Symphony’s next classical concerts will have a powerful emotional arc from the first downbeat to the last chord.

Conductor Jakub Hrusa will make his Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra debut March 13 and 15 at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall. The program is Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Alina Ibragimova as soloist, also a debut, and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 1.

Hrusa, 38, was born in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic.

He lives most of the time these days in London with his wife and two children.

The conductor played piano and trombone as a young person, but wasn’t thinking of pursuing either instrument professionally. He was in high school, about 15, when he decided conducting would be his path.

“I thought this is one of the most amazing and fascinating vocations one could have,” he says. “I have loved music since ever. I thought about composing and composed for a while, but I decided on conducting and the world of sound and have been happy ever since.”

Now he is principal conductor of the Bamberg Symphony in Germany and principal guest conductor of both the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Czech Philharmonic in Prague.

Hrusa notes that Brahms never gave away the meanings in the music he wrote.

“It’s a never-ending journey to try to find them out,” he says. “At the same time, I don’t think Brahms’ First Symphony needs to be explained in concrete terms because Brahms was a composer keen on communicating purely musically. The thing which is inescapable for the public and all of us is the main message: the way from the dark reality at the start to the bright one, the victory over the struggle.”

But the conductor does identify two struggles in Brahms’ First.

“One is the struggle to find a life solution, fulfillment in love. We know that (pianist and composer Clara Schumann) was his femme fatale for his whole life. The finale after the opening is a tribute to their relationship.”

The other struggle was artistic. Brahms didn’t write his First Symphony until he was 43, more than 20 years after he began producing masterly large-scale piano sonatas and chamber music.

“Brahms was in a never-ending virtual discussion with Beethoven,” he says. “This symphony is a victory over the stigma about the possibility of writing a symphony after Beethoven. There are various ways of doing that, but Brahms wanted to be as good as Beethoven, even though he wouldn’t have said that.”

Hrusa is also excited about collaborating again with Ibragimova in the Shostakovich concerto.

“I think the Shostakovich will match perfectly with her artistry,” he says.

The composer said this concerto is like “a symphony for solo violin and orchestra.”

“Brahms and Shostakovich encoded a lot of personal messages in their pieces, not to be taken literally,” Hrusa says. “Shostakovich juxtaposes darkness with sarcastic irony. I don’t think there is a victory in this piece. So, I think it gives the whole trajectory of the concert — what Shostakovich can’t do and Brahms probably can — the feeling of a satisfying journey.”