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Ondrej Vrabec: I am anchored in the symphonic repertoire.

Article Excerpt
Ondrej Vrabec is one of those people who seem to be oblivious to the astronomical constant of the twenty-four hour day. His activities are extensive and his interests wide-ranging. He is the first French horn player in the Czech Philharmonic, devotes himself intensively to conducting and plays in several chamber ensembles. With one of these ensembles, the Brahms Trio Prague, he recently completed a CD, very positively received by the critics, that he also personally recorded, edited, and prepared for release, producing the cover photo to boot ... Knowing Ondrej as I do, I can see that all this is just the beginning.

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Your professional life started very untypically--you started to play in the Czech Philharmonic at seventeen. How did it happen?

By the ordinary route--applying for an advertised place by audition. My professor at the Conservatory Bedrich Tylsar told me about it--even though applying at my age was almost impudent. Initially my rating wasn't actually above the level necessary for the appointment, bur it was the highest of any applicant and so the committee decided to give me a kind of year's internship in the orchestra, where I played anything that was needed, from fourth horn to first. The next year they advertised the post again (1998) and then I filled all the requirements. Finally in 1999 I got a full contractual place, right after my graduation concert in the Rudolfinum hall.

You were studying conducting at the Prague Conservatory at the same time.

Actually I only started that after finishing studies in the French horn. I graduated in conducting in 2002--they let me arrange for an individual study plan and so I shortened the study programme to three years. After the vacation I went on to the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. I graduated from there last year.

Then in the spring of 2007 came the Prague Spring Festival Competition, where you, as conductor, finished in very tight fourth place, although the critics didn't overlook your performance and rated it very highly. Are you planning to go in for any other competitions? Are they at all important?

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I'm afraid they are important. It annoys me a lot. Earlier I thought that the main thing was to play well, go into it in the greatest possible depth, take as humble an attitude as possible to the music and oneself and the rest would somehow fall into place. But then you discover that the kind of work you achieve that way doesn't always play the main role. Sometimes soloists, even those appearing with the Czech Philharmonic, are quite an eye-opener ... Competitions often look less like a display of artistic creativity and unique individuality than some sort of sports tournament, a match about who plays faster, higher, who can produce more surprises in terms of polished and above all faultlessly presented artistic numbers. It's only when you get further despite this necessary tax that you can in some way start to realise your real vision, if you have one of course--and that is often the source of the lack of fit between competitions and real concert practise. Competitions are actually only good in the sense that they offer prestige to people who don't want to rely on the conclusions of their own ears and hearts. Generally people today don't stick by their own views much; the important things are trends, admiring the same as the others, what is considered "in", what is recommended, what is most pushed by advertising. Music stars today support a vast machinery of small parasites and big vampires, who would never exist if this wasn't the general habit, and so no one actually wants music lovers themselves to look for diversity. They are supposed to consume what is served up to them and to pay into the right pockets. The problem was very nicely expressed by...