In late February, I watched Lukáš Vondráček perform Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15, with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in that city’s Smetana Hall. He attended the piano like a Victorian surgeon, leaning over the keyboard—a consequence of poor eyesight, I later learned—with a kind of furious concentration, hacking and slashing to reach some imperiled vital organ. This thought later settled on the image of Frankenstein—the doctor, not the monster—encouraged by Vondráček’s competent and self-contained demeanor, but also through the creative control he seemed to exert on the orchestra and conductor Tomáš Brauner from the bench. At times, Vondráček was like a second conductor, rising slightly from his seat, his hands, during lulls in his performance, flying up and pulsing with the music.
Some months after his Prague performance, and shortly before another, Vondráček was at home in Las Vegas. We spoke via video call, and in conversation, I sensed a humility and defiance that supported my impression of his imaginative autonomy, reinforced by a healthy cynicism with the establishment—including the recognition that followed his Grand Prix win, aged 29, at the 2016 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition.
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