Since leaving St Petersburg in the mid 1970s, Semyon Bychkov has been a guest on the podiums of the world’s finest orchestras. With his time carefully balanced between operatic and symphonic repertoire, he enjoys long and fruitful relationships with the orchestras and major opera houses in London, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Berlin, Chicago and New York. Bychkov’s trademark is in the breadth of his vision, the clarity of his interpretation and the rich beauty of his sound, captured in a series of award-winning CDs and DVDs that are part of the legacy of his tenure as Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. Winner of BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Year 2010, Bychkov’s recording of Wagner’s Lohengrin was committed to disc following staged performances at the Vienna Staatsoper and concert performances in Cologne.

read more...

"In Semyon Bychkov the Royal Opera House has found an exceptional interpreter of Puccini's score. He sculpts the music to perfection, letting the music breathe with a volume and exuberance that highlight all of the necessary passion, intensity and drama, while keeping the sound balanced and never sacrificing an ounce of musical detail. "

Sam Smith, MusicOMH May 2nd 2012

"[...] with Semyon Bychkov in the pit radiating enjoyment and animation and more importantly nursing the very particular tempo-rubato aspects of Puccini’s score it felt as spontaneous as it was heartening. And Italianate, too."

Edward Seckerson, Independent May 1st 2012

"Bychkov emphasises patience, spaciousness, control […] With his deeper understanding of Mahler tradition, Bychkov is a more clear-sighted guide to what the music is about. "

Andrew Clark, Financial Times Apr 3rd 2012

"The appearances in London of Semyon Bychkov have become red-letter events, and his, and his latest concert with the London Symphony Orchestra was no exception [...] Bychkov is one of a select few conductors who make coherent sense of the massive first movement, which in some performances emerges as a sagging sequence of events. His powerful grasp here extended from the big architectural shapes to the smallest textual detail, all of which he shaped with a fluid baton. And Bychkov got the LSO to do exactly what Mahler called for, right from the very opening [...] In a symphony of stepwise spiritual ascent, the finale took on a profound glow in Bychkov’s hands.. "

Paul Driver, The Sunday Telegraph Paul Driver, The Sunday Telegraph, 8 April 2012 Apr 8th 2012

"Bychkov’s natural unfolding of the symphony was particularly satisfying, all down, it would seem, to his elegant, precise baton and eloquent left hand, a completely non-mysterious looking technique releasing any amount of marvel and mystery [...] Even from the LSO, this was great playing, idiomatic, generous and right inside the notes. The sense of certainty and resolution that gathered strength and identity through the three cataclysmic outbursts to the radiant closing bars must have been as lovely and all-embracing as Mahler hoped for in a movement originally titled ‘What love tells me’ 2 "

Peter Reed, Classicalsource.com Apr 2nd 2012

"Bychkov makes you feel as though you've gone deeply into the workings of the piece along with him and heard it as if for the first time. "

Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, November 2011

"It is a joy to watch this maestro at work. Not just because Semyon Bychkov’s beat is unmistakably precise, but also because his manner of conducting follows a wonderfully fluent flow of movement. And it was just this aesthetic that proved a felicitous inspiration to the NDR Symphony Orchestra, whose exquisite sound combines clarity with rotundity and warmth. … The orchestra gave a performance of one of its showpieces [Brahms No. 1] which was well-proportioned and powerful, with a finale that bloomed gorgeously but was never over-heated. There was nothing unusual in Bychkov’s interpretation, just wonderful conducting. Sheer joy. "

Peter Krause, Die Welt Jan 14th 2012

"The arc of suspense did not once dip throughout the entire performance [of Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht] due to Bychkov's constant modulation of the tempo, which is perfectly attuned to the breathless agitation of the music. [In the Alpensinfonie] Bychkov counts on colour and the big gestures of this titan of instrumentation. And it is a total joy: how the woodwinds find each other for new combinations; how the strings are glowing, radiating and caressing around [concertmaster] Frank-Michael Erben; how the brass pull the imaginary alphorn into the hall; how together they brave the mighty thunderstorm, whilst at the same time aware of the tenderness along the way."

Leiziger Volkszeitung, 21 January 2012

"There was something magical in the performance of Brahms' Second Symphony that Semyon Bychkov conducted with the RAI Orchestra to mark the start of a new Brahms cycle. The rhapsodically natural yet rigorous pace, the colouristic esthetic, both intense and intimate but without becoming either stiff or excessively confidential, gave Bychkov's interpretation a melancholy grace, which was both spontaneous and profound. [...] Bychkov has always had the right way to avoid harshness and post-romantic unctuousness in Brahms music. "

La Repubblica, 4 December 2011

"Many conductors use [Ein Heldenleben] as an excuse to pump up the orchestra as well as their own egos. Not Bychkov. The Russian-born maestro downplayed the bombast, tightened the sprawl and banished the vulgarity. In so doing, he heightened the music's sumptuous beauty and warmth of feeling, and had one marvelling anew at the sonic and contrapuntal mastery with which Strauss deploys his huge orchestral forces... So, too, Bychkov shaped the expansive love scene with great tenderness, not just in the breadth of sound he drew from the orchestra but in the glowing tonal quality he brought to it. "

John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, November 2011

"Semyon Bychkov conducted [the Teatro Real's production of Elektra]- and it was his work that accounted for the biggest success of the evening. His reading was in short spectacular, and saturated with emotion. Under his baton the orchestra, enlarged to 110 players, offered the best performance I can remember from them. "

José Maria Irurzun, Musicweb International, October 2011

"There's something hypnotic about Bychkov these days and this Prom was very special. It's the way that he retained an iron control over the dynamics while maintaining propulsion. […] the intensity of the thing, by the end, was overwhelming. "

James Inverne, Gramophone, August 2011

"The success of the evening mostly resides with Semyon Bychkov who once again showed that he is the best conductor of Wagner that Covent Garden has had for decades. [...] Bychkov’s interpretation has a persuasive grandeur, an almost seamless flow, and exquisite attention to musical detail. He brings out sounds from the Covent Garden orchestra that I wonder if they knew they were capable of … had he not done much the same when he conducted them in Lohengrin and Don Carlos recently."

Jim Pritchard, MusicWeb International, December 2010