Way to the Berlin Philharmonic

12/11/2011 | Novinky

Wondering what these two things had in common, I’ve come to the conclusion that it can be summed up in a word: conscience. Thanks to conscience one can know the amount of effort one should put into a performance – it is, after all, not always true that more effort means greater success. I entered the Prague Spring Competition with a clear conscience. I knew that I had given my all to be prepared and that on stage I was the only one who might be disappointed. Thanks to a combination of true concentration and good luck I went all the way to the finals, and succeeded.

Why am I talking about conscience in connection with playing in an orchestra? Because that is the ‘secret motor’ of world-class orchestras. Not even the listener in the first row can tell whether any musician is not on form. At times even an experienced conductor is unable to notice it. I always thought that one could somehow ‘hide’ in the orchestra and, for example, save one’s energy for future concerts. But as soon as I arrived at the Berlin Philharmonic, I realized that I had to play every bar, every note ‘full out’, with a clear conscience. Only in that way can the energy of the individual players cluster, move in the same direction, and reach the ear of the listener with full firepower!

My work in the Berlin Philharmonic will end in 2012 and I’ll again be concentrating on my solo career, which was launched by the Prague Spring in 2006. But even now I can say – with a clear conscience – that these two years will have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration and learning.

Tomáš Jamník