Search - Smetana, Kubelik, Brso :: Smetana: Richard III/Janacek: Sinfonietta

Fire and emotion in Czech national music

Larry VanDeSande | Mason, Michigan United States | 07/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) and Leos Janacek (1854-1928) were two of the principal architects of the new Czech national music that evolved in the late 19th century. Neither are best known for the contents of this CD; Smetana is best known for "My Homeland", a set of tone poems depicting Czechoslovakia and Czech legends, and the opera "The Bartered Bride". Janacek composed several operas including "Jenufa" and "The Cunning Little Vixen" and the suite "Taras Bulba". His "Sinfonietta" on this recording is among his better-known orchestral works.



Perhaps as little known as "Hakon Jarl" is that Smetana -- like Beethoven with the Symphony No. 9 -- composed "Ma Vlast" after he was deaf as a result of syphillis. The composer eventually went mad from the disease and died in a madhouse. Janacek apparently met a better fate at the end.



Smetana's tone poems are not well known and this recording, made in 1971, is still the best recording of "Richard III", "Wallenstein's Camp" and "Hakon Jarl" made in the analog or digital eras. Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik is an outstanding advocate for the music. He has recorded it before; a recording with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra dating from the 1940s, with pretty good sound for the era, is available accompanied by Vitezslav Novak's South Bohemian Suite (ASIN: B00009L4T4). For my money, however, this is the recording of choice in this repertoire.



Smetana's tone poems are modeled after Liszt; they tell a story, usually about a Czech legend, and are developed in rising romantic waves that sweep the listener along, later settling into calm before again exploding into sound. They are not on the level of inspiration of a Tchaikovsky tone poem but they compare well to Dvorak's tone poems such as the "Noonday Witch".



The sound on this 35-year-old recording is excellent with good frequency response, clarity and bass depth. The playing of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is outstanding and they acquit themselves under Kubelik as if they were Praque residents that survived the 1968 Soviet takeover. This is a CD to treasure if you enjoy romantic Czech music."

An unknown repertoire of Smetana!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 04/15/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"According the learned precepts of his mentor, Franz Liszt, Smetana three symphonic poems between 1858 and 1861, being conductor of the Philharmonic Society `s concerts in Gothenburg, Sweden. Eventually, these works point the way to his fame cycle My Country.



It should be said the Orchestral cycle of Smetana is unfinished without having listened these symphonic poems, which gives you a total support to enjoy his acclaimed "My Country"



Richard III (1858) as well as the other symphonic poems is built according the Liszt pattern: four movements, disguised and shortened form. The delirious paranoia and power `s thirst until the tragic finale is underlined with an admirable orchestration and frenetic drama.



Wallenstein `s Camp (1859) was originally conceived as an Overture based on a Schiller's play.



Hakon Jarl (1861) was written in homage to the hospitable Scandinavians and describes an episode from the time when Norway was converted to Christianity, and deals with the effort of this Regent in order to re-establish heathendom but his plans are modified because Olaf Trygvason, the legitimate heir of the dethroned king.



Carnival in Prague was composed in a terrible period in which Smetana, already threatened with a serious mental illness, could complete it. It is provided of heightened expressiveness where the composer intermingles folk dances, high jinks, whirl of a polonaise. The first performance was given before his sixtieth anniversary at the eve of his final reclusion in the Prague mental asylum, that constituted indeed his last sojourn due the proximity of his death.



Rafael Kubelik enriched and illuminated the score with his fervent and masterful directorial abilities, making sound the Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks with precise articulation in every one of the attacks.

"