Despite having seen and heard Sir Charles Mackerras conduct numerous times over the years, nothing could have prepared me for his concert last December with his beloved Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, in the Rudolfinum in Prague. The programme was vintage Mackerras: two of Dvořák’s tone-poems, followed by Magdalena Kožená leading the line in the world premiere performance of a gloriously rich and eccentric suite drawn from Martin≤’s opera Julietta. What a splendid banquet for all the senses: the warmth of the audience, the stunning acoustic, and, above all, the sound of a first-class orchestra playing deeply inside its own music. This was more than idiomatic; it really felt like being at the premiere of all three pieces, and there was a strong sense that Mackerras, born in the USA, raised in Australia and long resident in London, had somehow come home.

The following morning I was the sole audience member for a “patch” session for the Dvořák pieces, which consisted almost entirely of the quietest passages, suggesting these inserts were judged necessary as a consequence of the numerous upper respiratory infections afflicting the audience, not lapses in the players’ virtuosity. The affection and respect of the orchestral players for Mackerras was even more apparent in this private assembly, as was his unique fluency in, and feel for, both Czech music and the Czech language. It was a light session and not one retouch was required for the Martinů, much to the conductor’s relief: he had to travel straight on to Vienna, to begin rehearsals for Alfred Brendel’s final concert. Mackerras explained that Dvořák is becoming “something of a speciality now”. He has already set down three of the tone-poems and several of the symphonies; more recordings are planned.

Though he is known above all else for his potent advocacy of the works of Janáček, Sir Charles Mackerras’s Czech journey in fact began with Dvořák. As a young freelance oboist, freshly arrived in London in the bitter winter of 1947, he bought a score of Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony and proceeded to study it in a Kensington café. This attracted the attentions of Josef Weisslitzer, an enthusiastic amateur cellist from Czechoslovakia who also happened to be in the café. Weisslitzer was a member of the Anglo-Czechoslovak Friendship League and told the young Australian about six annual scholarships the British Council was offering to study in Czechoslovakia. Mackerras applied, was accepted and soon found himself, accompanied by his wife, en route to Prague.

The scholarships generally went to those interested in Slavonic studies; he was the only musician. Mackerras attended the Academy and his clarinet-playing wife the Conservatorium. He was soon dismayed to discover, however, that the man with whom he hoped to study, Václav Talich, was not in the best of health and no longer did any teaching. Undaunted, Mackerras befriended the ailing maestro, whom he still describes as “my revered professor”. He studied privately with him at his villa at Beroun and attended his rehearsals with the Czech Chamber Orchestra he had founded, which he encouraged to play “like a huge string quartet”. This quality – of listening to one another – is immediately apparently when watching Mackerras conduct the Czech Philharmonic some 60 years later. The best lessons really do stick.

During his 10 months in Czechoslovakia, Charles Mackerras discovered the major works of Janáček for the first time and his ambition to conduct was greatly fuelled. A particularly profound experience was a performance of Kát’a Kabanová in the National Theatre on October 15, 1947, conducted by Talich and starring the legendary tenor Beno Blachut. He returned for a second hearing just 11 evenings later. He also heard The Excursions of Mr Brouček live for the first time.

Unfortunately, 1947-48 proved to be life-changing in a less positive way for the native population of what had hitherto been the only Central European country to hold out against the tide of state socialism. In February 1948 the Communists, already the largest party in the Czech Parliament after the elections of 1946, effectively seized control. Talich was ostracised and shorn of his positions at the National Theatre and with his own chamber orchestra. Though Talich outwitted his persecutors by continuing to work with the latter group – “he used to rehearse them in secret and then they played the concerts without a conductor” – the Communists were “not anxious at all to have Westerners staying in the country” and Mackerras soon curtailed his stay, returning as an assistant conductor to Sadler’s Wells, where he preached the virtues of Janá∂ek’s operas to the then director, Norman Tucker, citing in support, inter alia, the musings of Desmond Shawe-Taylor.

Mackerras remarks upon how often he has been the beneficiary of the misfortune of others, and so it proved when the principal conductor of Sadler’s Wells, Michael Mudie, developed multiple sclerosis and he found himself taking on more and more front-line conducting responsibilities. In particular, with two weeks’ notice, he took musical charge of Dennis Arundell’s 1951 production of Kát’a, for which he had himself been the strongest advocate. It was the first production of a Janá∂ek opera in the UK and proved to be a historic triumph, not least for its star, Amy Shuard. Other Janáček productions followed, including groundbreaking runs of From the House of the Dead (which he singles out today as an especially good piece for an ensemble company) and The Makropulos Case. Soon Janáček and his works were no longer strangers to London and, after Mackerras moved on, Colin Davis gladly and ably took up the baton for The Cunning Little Vixen.

After a break of a decade or so, Mackerras at last felt able to return to Czechoslovakia, despite his political reservations. The land was now firmly in the grip of Communist tyranny, so he was “really quite surprised” – and pleasantly so – by the willingness of the curators of the Janáček papers in Brno to let him pore over original manuscript scores. Thus began the life of Charles Mackerras not only as conductor, but also as musicologist and editor, responsible for producing clean and accurate performing editions of many of the most important of Janáček’s works. As he spent more and more time behind the Iron Curtain, this gentlest and most generous-spirited of men had to harden his heart as he was beset with hard-luck stories and requests for assistance, many of them from the legions of agents provocateurs who systematically poisoned life in those benighted countries.

The pay was always in local currency, useless in the world outside, but Mackerras turned this to his advantage. Several prestigious music publishers found themselves on the wrong side of the tracks in the post-1945 carve-up of Europe, notably Breitkopf & Härtel and Peters, and Mackerras invested his earnings in full sets of performing parts, a “vast library of materials” that he marked up for rehearsal and performance. This collection is still “part of the secret of my success in rehearsals, because it saves so much rehearsal time”, though the poor quality, communist-era paper has begun to crumble, as have many of the concert halls and opera houses. Mackerras speaks with feeling about this state of affairs, then cheerfully switches back into the major, praising all the orchestras with which he works in the Czech Republic.

I had noticed in the Prague concert programme the complete absence of non- Czech names in the ranks of the Czech Philharmonic, and Mackerras believes this is crucial to their extraordinarily flowing, idiomatic way of playing Czech music, gently lamenting the increasing homogeneity of so many of the best orchestras. He recalled too how Czech musicians were largely insulated from outside influences during the Communist era. When he conducted Don Giovanni in Prague in 1991, in the recently restored Estates Theatre where the work had been premiered, Mackerras found himself introducing the musicians to many of the concepts and techniques of “period” playing for the very first time.

With a gentle smile, Sir Charles Mackerras reminds me in passing of Mozart’s comment “meine Prager verstehen mich” (“my Praguers understand me”), adding “I’m not comparing myself with Mozart, but it’s good to be able to quote him and speak the truth at the same time.”

Half a century on from his first concerts in the Czech lands he has numerous plans afoot. In September he returns to the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, which recently made him its conductor laureate, for concerts and a live recording of the original version of the Glagolitic Mass. He has recorded this before, but feels the time is right for a final, definitive statement on the piece. There is also a Turn of the Screw at ENO, Semele at the Royal Academy and a return to Dartington during the summer, where he will conduct The Creation, much to his amusement, in an anniversary year for both Haydn and Darwin.

The much-admired geniality of Charles Mackerras’s conducting is more than matched by the man himself in conversation. He may be 83 years old, and perceived increasingly as one of the grand old men of the musical world, but he possesses a freshness and joie de vivre that would put many a younger colleague to shame. When I arrived for the interview, Mackerras claimed to be rather tired and out of sorts, so if things didn’t go well, we might have to try again some other time. Two fascinating hours later I was tempted to pretend my voice recorder had let me down, because I could think of nothing better than reliving every minute of that delightful conversation. Could there be a nicer tribute? 

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