Smetana Ma Vlast

[Chris Newman]

OK, Steerpike.

I shall continue to hunt and will likewise approach Dover's with a begging email. Love your board name: we'll make 'em swelter or flay 'em alive.

bws
Chris

[Steerpike]

Well on the old boards I was just a Grey Scrubber - I thought it was time to promote myself. 'Flay' was taken and Swelter was a bit too vulgar, even for me!

[Chris Newman]

How funny. I was mistaken and thought you were Flay on the old boards and had promoted yourself on this one. Well, glad we both like Smetana and Peake. Have you spotted Flay on FoR3? I suspect he/she will choose a name we can all groan at :Smiley for "Duck Quickly":

[Bryn]

You can download the now long out of copyright score from here.

[Steerpike]

Chris - no I don't think I have seen Flay here. As long as no-one calls themselves Titus (gerrit?), they'll be all right. (If you're allowed groan, I'm allowed this!) By the way I got a positively pleasant email back from Dover, thanking me and saying they'll consider it.

Bryn - many thanks for this link. It's great for checking the odd point but a bit of a sweat to print out so I still hope Dover reprint the whole thing.

[Bryn]

Just load it into your iPad.

(No, I don't have one, or intend to get one, either, but I do look forward to the day when musicians have tablet screens on their music stands and will be able to 'turn' pages silently and without dropping sheaves of paper on the floor. )

[Rolmill]

As an aside to recordings, I wonder if anyone can help me. I have hunted the internet in vain to find if there is such a thing as a complete full score of Smetana's Ma Vlast and draw a blank each time. There are individual Eulenberg mini-scores but no decent thing printed that I can read easily: a Dover score would be wonderful but not even Smetana's various publishers seem to own up to such larger complete things. No I do not want a set of orchetral parts: I do not have an orchestra. What do conductors do?: perhaps they use six little Eulenbergs?

Chris, I don't know of a complete score out there, but Thompson Edition sell conductor's scores for each movement separately - but prices range from £16 to a whopping £28 , making it a very expensive purchase in aggregate...here's the link if you're interested.

[Chris Newman]

:quote: Bryn - many thanks for this link. It's great for checking the odd point but a bit of a sweat to print out so I still hope Dover reprint the whole thing. :unquote:

Thanks Steerpike, Bryn and Rollmill

I do agree with Steerpike on this one. Thanks for the link. It is a lot of printing and with my simple printer I have to stick the pages back to back or put them in plastic sleeves.....

By the way, the Eulenbergs are much cheaper on Amazon....but wouldn't it be nice to have the whole cycle in one book.

cheers, Chris.

[Barbirollians]

I am sure it was discussed elsewhere but I cannot remember which thread so I thought I would resurrect this one. The 1939 live Talich performance which the CPO issued was then reissued on Supraphon. It is quite astonishing and very well recorded for its time apparently by Oslo radio . No hesitation here from the audience about applauding between movements !

It is an astonishing performance - not merely as a document of what was self-evidently an immensely moving occasion a sort of act of artistic defiance of the first order but the passion of the playing is breathtaking . Very very strongly recommended.

[jayne lee wilson]

Whizzing through this thread late as usual, don't see anyone mentioning Kubelik's 1952 mono stunner on Mercury with the Chicago Symphony; it's full of the requisite slav fire and passion, it really swings, marches and dances! But it dreams too, and the bird-calls are vivid and alive... Too much has been made of "distortion" in the tapes, and despite his later, great readings in Prague and Munich (I prefer the live 1984 BRSO version) there's an electrifying vitality to his earliest complete attempt that cannot be gainsaid. It has all the freshness of discovery for the performers, the orchestral response is both virtuosic and spontaneous.

I've huge admiration for all that BIS and Claus Peter Flor are doing in Malaysia, but haven't heard this Ma Vlast yet. If their recent Dvorak 7th is a sure guide, it should be special!

[Flay]

I am sure it was discussed elsewhere but I cannot remember which thread so I thought I would resurrect this one. The 1939 live Talich performance which the CPO issued was then reissued on Supraphon. It is quite astonishing and very well recorded for its time apparently by Oslo radio . No hesitation here from the audience about applauding between movements !

It is an astonishing performance - not merely as a document of what was self-evidently an immensely moving occasion a sort of act of artistic defiance of the first order but the passion of the playing is breathtaking . Very very strongly recommended.

It was discussed on BAL in the pre-Xmas review of the year's releases:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018571x

Then afterwards on these pages. The audience sang their anthem at the end of the performance. Very emotional.

[mathias broucek]

There's a Kubelik Czech PO recording from Japan. Has anyone heard it?

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, this is the Denon/Supraphon coco-73061 issue of the live 1990 Prague Spring Festival account. The one I have here is the Blu-spec CD, and sounds marvellous! I don't have a standard one for comparison but these Japanese reissues almost invariably sound superior - cleaner, fresher, more dynamic and detailed - just more real.

There's a Kubelik Czech PO recording from Japan. Has anyone heard it?

[mathias broucek]

Yes, this is the Denon/Supraphon coco-73061 issue of the live 1990 Prague Spring Festival account. The one I have here is the Blu-spec CD, and sounds marvellous! I don't have a standard one for comparison but these Japanese reissues almost invariably sound superior - cleaner, fresher, more dynamic and detailed - just more real.

Thanks Jayne. I've got the Supraphon version and will stick with that. There's nothing special about the sound on Denon's issue of Kubelik doing Mozart and Dvorak with the Czech PO in 1991

BTW I completely agree about the Chicago recording. That's probably my favourite Kubelik Ma Vlast although the Munich one also has a lot to commend it....

[salymap]

I've never heard a complete Ma Vlast live at a concert but Malcolm Sargent certainly used min scores if a couple of the pieces were done. Working in a music library I've certainly never seen a full score,not that that proves anything