'Bartered Bride' overture

[Rover_KE]

I hope I'm not the only one who wishes Radio 3 would find a more controlled version of the 100mph Bartered Bride overture they keep playing. It sounds like George Szell can't wait to get it over with and get home early.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I hope I'm not the only one who wishes Radio 3 would find a more controlled version of the 100mph Bartered Bride overture they keep playing. It sounds like George Szell can't wait to get it over with and get home early.

That’s a bit of an orchestra display piece with conductors vying to get faster and faster. There must be other opera overtures around - this one is so over played.

[Master Jacques]

That’s a bit of an orchestra display piece with conductors vying to get faster and faster. There must be other opera overtures around - this one is so over played.

Unless something is overplayed, why would Radio 3 be interesting in programming it? Having banged on for decades to Composer of the Week about the wondrous panoply of 19th-20th Hispanic composers they consistently ignore, beyond their eternally recycled "big three" (with duff information), I've come to feel that only the most hackneyed or 'trending' material is of interest to producers.

Why they don't play the occasional overture by Cherubini or Auber (who wrote some stunners, of equal brevity to the Smetana) completely defeats me. Presumably they don't know 'em, so they don't exist.

(Not that I object to hearing The Bartered Bride myself. It's infinitely preferable to the diurnal exposure of Rhapsody in Blue, which ought to be chucked into Room 101, never to make us scream again.)

[Keraulophone]

I hope I'm not the only one who wishes Radio 3 would find a more controlled version of the 100mph Bartered Bride overture they keep playing. It sounds like George Szell can't wait to get it over with and get home early.

Szell was a noted cook so he might have had someting in the oven that needed turning off!

Friends would ask him for recipes, which he would provide with one ingredient missing.

That is a thrilling overture, but I once had the misfortune to sit through the entire lengthy opera in Plymouth Theatre Royal: possibly the most boring hours spent with opera thrust upon me.

Rover_KE, you should avoid the famous LP of short orchestral works recorded in1965 by Mravinsky and his Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. It opens with an unbelievably fast overture to Glinka's "Ruslan And Lyudmila", but one can't help admiring the extreme virtuosity with which it and the Ov to the Marriage of Figaro are played. Both Szell and Mravinsky held long-term chief conducting posts in an era when maestri could act like musical dictators. Hungarian conductors in particular come to mind: Solti (his Ruslan is fast!), Reiner and Dorati - too much hot paprika?!

Listen if you dare ...

https://youtu.be/wfJ0K_qy9_8?si=gm4vcc_Yqk9lQlvH

[Master Jacques]

That is a thrilling overture, but I once had the misfortune to sit through the entire lengthy opera in Plymouth Theatre Royal: possibly the most boring hours spent with opera thrust upon me.

It must have been a crass production, as The Bartered Bride is nothing if not entertaining. Nor is it lengthy, by operatic standards (or by Smetanoid ones).

For me it's to Smetana what Barchester Towers is to Trollope - delightful, but not representative of their mature work. Both Dalibor and The Kiss are amongst the greatest operas ever written, by my reckoning.

[gradus]

Szell was a noted cook so he might have had someting in the oven that needed turning off!

Friends would ask him for recipes, which he would provide with one ingredient missing.

That is a thrilling overture, but I once had the misfortune to sit through the entire lengthy opera in Plymouth Theatre Royal: possibly the most boring hours spent with opera thrust upon me.

Rover_KE, you should avoid the famous LP of short orchestral works recorded in1965 by Mravinsky and his Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. It opens with an unbelievably fast overture to Glinka's "Ruslan And Lyudmila", but one can't help admiring the extreme virtuosity with which it and the Ov to the Marriage of Figaro are played. Both Szell and Mravinsky held long-term chief conducting posts in an era when maestri could act like musical dictators. Hungarian conductors in particular come to mind: Solti (his Ruslan is fast!), Reiner and Dorati - too much hot paprika?!

Listen if you dare ...

https://youtu.be/wfJ0K_qy9_8?si=gm4vcc_Yqk9lQlvH

I agree about The Bartered Bride and would add Lohengrin.

[cloughie]

Looks like we have responses from politicians, MJ, as noone has answered the question - OK, there was no ‘?’ But two of my long term favourite recordings are Kertesz and Reiner.

[mopsus]

Friends would ask him for recipes, which he would provide with one ingredient missing. ... Rover_KE, you should avoid the famous LP of short orchestral works recorded in1965 by Mravinsky and his Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. It opens with an unbelievably fast overture to Glinka's "Ruslan And Lyudmila", ...

I avoid sharing recipes with people who've never entertained me themselves - I don't like the idea of them cooking them for their friends behind my back.
Going more on topic - the overture to R & L used to be the most frequently placed work on Through the Night - or so it seemed - don't know whether that is still the case. It was probably the same recording each time.

[pastoralguy]

Could we add Shostakovich’s Festive Overture and Bernstein’s Candide, please? Great pieces but not all the time!

[smittims]

At one time it was 'Zadok the Priest', The Strauss op. 7 serenade, 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' and the Rigoletto paraphrase that were overplayed on Radio 3 in the mornings. We're often told that the presenters are very knowledgeable but unless it's just laziness some of their knowledge appears shallow to me.

This is why 'Through the Night' is so good. I'm sure we hear a wider range of composers and works there than in daytime Radio 3 programming.

[mopsus]

Through the Night used to have some pieces that came round more often than you'd expect - apart from the overture to 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' there was Strauss' first horn concerto and music by Hellendaal (an 18th-century Dutch composer who is buried in Cambridge).

[LMcD]

Could we add Shostakovich’s Festive Overture and Bernstein’s Candide, please? Great pieces but not all the time!

... and the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony, the overture to 'La Forza del Destino', Butterworth's 'The Banks of Green Willow', the 2nd movement of Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto and the opening movement of Bteethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata.

[pastoralguy]

... and the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony, the overture to 'La Forza del Destino', Butterworth's 'The Banks of Green Willow', the 2nd movement of Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto and the opening movement of Bteethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata.

I’d forgotten about The Banks of Green Willow! Another work that gets trotted out too often.

[Master Jacques]

Looks like we have responses from politicians, MJ, as noone has answered the question - OK, there was no ‘?’ But two of my long term favourite recordings are Kertesz and Reiner.

If I wanted to hear the Bartered Bride overture, I'd turn to the old 1933 classic under Otakar Ostrcil, and hang around for the rest of the opera. It's the first and still best of the lot, in many ways! The overture goes at a lick too, as - frankly - it ought to, without sounding too virtuosic.

[kernelbogey]

Through the Night used to have some pieces that came round more often than you'd expect - apart from the overture to 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' there was Strauss' first horn concerto and music by Hellendaal (an 18th-century Dutch composer who is buried in Cambridge).

... though he was alive when organist at Pembroke College and later Peterhouse.