A droll, bespectacled figure, Viklický is quite happy to admit that his music is loathed by some traditional music purists in his native Czech Republic. Quite why seems hard for an outsider to understand, since the pianist’s melodic improvisations on “folkloric” themes seem, for the most part, tasteful and kitsch-free. The country’s President, V?clav Klaus, presumably has no objections either, as he recently invited Viklický to open a series of VIP concerts at Prague Castle.
Viklický deserves to be better known in this country. There seems to be no end of an appetite, after all, for the more anodyne, folk-like meanderings of the musicians who have made the ECM label their home. Although his work draws on similar roots, Viklický’s soloing has the advantage of being combined with much spikier bebop phrasing.
Most of his trio’s first set was devoted to the kind of flowing treatments of Moravian songs that so annoy his detractors. The band opened, however, with some conventional muscle-flexing on a Cole Porter standard, the veteran double-bassist Frantisek Uhlir and drummer Laco Tropp both cheerfully pushing the tempo upwards.
As for the traditional numbers, most had the stately quality of a chorale, Viklický generating flourishes that sometimes resembled more muscular versions of Keith Jarrett’s folksier ruminations. Uhlir is an exceptionally mobile accompanist who can supply some dense counter-melodies, although when Tropp’s contribution was at its stormiest, the performances occasionally toppled into bombast.
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They saved the best till last with a bravura adaptation of a drinking song. The piece itself had a touch of drunken swagger about it, evoking echoes of an old-fashioned Charleston before the trio settled into the sort of bustling riff that would have seemed quite at home in a Horace Silver concert. The old guard back home might not have approved; the London audience adored it.