The third movement of the Symphony No. 6 in B minor, the "Pathetique", by Tchaikovsky is one of the snappiest movements in the classical-romantic repertoire, so fast and peppered that after this "Allegro molto vivace" in concerts it is very likely that large parts the audience immediately applauds frenetically - too early, but understandably so.

For professional orchestras, this part of the much-performed standard work should be a sure-fire success, one would think.

Guido Holze

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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But Emmanuel Tjeknavorian rehearses an unusually large amount of it with the hr-Sinfonieorchester in the Frankfurt broadcasting hall of the Hessischer Rundfunk.

The 28-year-old guest conductor from Vienna surprisingly demands “ease” and has one passage repeated at half tempo and then another “not with full force”.

It should be clear to the musicians what he wants to achieve with this: new attention for the seemingly familiar.

In a conversation with Tjeknavorian after the rehearsal, it quickly becomes apparent that the conductor and violinist, who speaks with a shimmering Viennese accent, will be performing his first of five programs as “Artist in Residence” of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra this season on Thursday, November 10 in the broadcasting hall designed, is a thoughtful performer who takes nothing lightly.

Even the father was a conductor

Born in Vienna in 1995 as the son of an Armenian family of musicians, he received his first violin lessons at the age of five and then, alongside school, studied at the music university in his native city.

His father, the conductor and composer Loris Tjeknavorian, whose violin concerto Emmanuel recorded on CD as a soloist with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019, also taught him conducting as a child.

"Conducting is also an art of movement that you can learn, for example how you learn to grip and bow when you play the violin," Tjeknavorian describes the first exercises for developing the striking technique and adds: "I'm glad that I learned these basics as a child I learned.” At the time, he saw his father, who meanwhile devoted himself more to composing, primarily as a conductor:

"When he was on tour and not there, I often heard his recordings, including one of Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony.

That was the contact with my father.”

In any case, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian felt drawn to conducting at an early age, possibly because of this role model.

However, he began his career primarily as a violinist.

In 2015, at the age of 20, he won second prize at the renowned Sibelius Competition.

"My schedule was so full after that that I was only on the road for a season and a half as a violinist and didn't get a chance as a conductor.

I wasn’t doing well there,” he explains, explaining his decision, made in 2018, to limit his activity as an instrumentalist in order to devote himself more to conducting.

A rarity from the "Ben Hur" composer

He will remain active as a violinist and will be experienced as an "artist in residence" as a soloist and chamber musician, since it is nice to express feelings directly with the instrument.

The attraction as a conductor, however, lies in realizing inner sound ideas with the orchestra: “I look at the score and feel an inner need to shape it with fellow musicians.” The quiet occupation with the score can cause sleepless nights: “The days before the first rehearsal are unbearable,” says Tjeknavorian, admitting that before the first with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony he sat over the sheet music until four in the morning.

In addition to Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique", a rarity will be heard in the program repeated on Friday, November 11: the concerto for viola and orchestra by Miklós Rózsa, who is known almost exclusively as a film composer.

The British violist Timothy Ridout, who studied at Kronberg Academy, takes on the solo part.

Born in Budapest in 1907, Rózsa, who later made a career in Hollywood and became known for his music for films such as "The Thief of Baghdad" and "Ben Hur", is "a brilliant composer who should be taken seriously", says Tjeknavorian.

He only got to know Rósza's Viola Concerto a year ago when he was filling in as a conductor elsewhere.

It is still tonal, stands in the late-Romantic tradition and in some places seems "quite exaggerated and bombastic".

The question,

In a chamber concert on Sunday, November 13, in the broadcasting hall, he will be presenting another composer who, coming from the European late-Romantic tradition, was successful in Hollywood: he will play the string sextet in D major op. 10 by Erich Wolfgang Korngold before Richard Strauss' "Metamorphoses" in the reconstructed original version for string sextet.

As a soloist, Tjeknavorian can soon be heard in the concerts of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Alte Oper on November 23, 24 and 25 with a relatively small gem: the "Caprice d'après l'Étude en forme de valse ’ by Camille Saint-Saëns, to whom, under the baton of chief conductor Alain Altinoglu, between two contributions by Mussorgsky he will certainly give the lightness he has invoked.

■ Concerts with Emmanuel Tjeknavorian as "Artist in Residence" of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony on November 10, 11, 13, 23, 24 and 25 and on April 27, 2023