Prague, or more specifically the panoramic photographs taken of the Czech capital by Josef Sudek in the 1950s and 60s, were the starting point for Julian Anderson’s new symphony, his second. Co-commissioned by the BBC, it is dedicated to the Russian-born conductor Semyon Bychkov, who opened his Prom with the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the first complete performance of Anderson’s score.
It’s certainly ambitious and substantial, but despite the subtitle of “Prague Panoramas”, Anderson insists it is not programme music, that it can be appreciated as an entirely abstract, half-hour work. Yet Czech references are embedded in all three movements. The material of the first, which builds to a huge final climax, makes use of two medieval Czech hymns; the harmonies of the central nocturne are derived from the sound-spectra of the bells of a Prague church; and the rough-and-tumble of the finale was apparently inspired by depictions of pub brawls in the cartoons of Josef Lada.
