'Bartered Bride' overture

[Master Jacques]

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

How could they tell?

[kernelbogey]

Observed walking across Parker's Piece.

[smittims]

By coincidence the Bartered Bride overture was played again on R3 this morning at 4.30, with Barry Wordsworth conducting at a more sensible tempo.

[mikealdren]

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.

It's a killer for the 2nd violins!

[Master Jacques]

It's a killer for the 2nd violins!

Quite so ... and it needs to sound on the edge, if it's to work!

[smittims]

Tradition has it that at the first performance one of the violinists was a butcher's son called A . Dvorak. He later conducted one of his symphonies at the Birmingham Festival and one of the viloinists there was a shopkeeper's son called E.Elgar. He too conducted, and at the premiere of his cello concerto in 1919 the cello section included a certain G.B. Barbirolli.

[Master Jacques]

Tradition has it that at the first performance one of the violinists was a butcher's son called A . Dvorak. He later conducted one of his symphonies at the Birmingham Festival and one of the viloinists there was a shopkeeper's son called E.Elgar. He too conducted, and at the premiere of his cello concerto in 1919 the cello section included a certain G.B. Barbirolli.

Dvorak's instrument at the Provisional Theatre (where the original, two-act Bartered Bride with spoken dialogue was first mounted) was in fact the viola. Otherwise, I've not seen anything to contradict the idea that he was playing that night, though he never mentioned the fact. The young hopeful would have been unlikely to put in a deputy for such a prestigious opening, conducted by Czech music's rising star.

His relationship with Smetana is an interesting one, marked by hero-worship on one side, and a mix of wariness, harshness and genuine helpfulness to his younger rival on the other.

[smittims]

Thans for that , M-J. So, yet another viola-playing composer to add to Bach, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Hindemith, Bridge, Britten and Rebecca Clarke.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thans for that , M-J. So, yet another viola-playing composer to add to Bach, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Hindemith, Bridge, Britten and Rebecca Clarke.

Also Brett Dean . I wonder whether composers disproportionately favour the instrument because you spend a lot of time inside the harmony as it were - at the heart of the orchestra really . One of the more interesting places to be. Or maybe they are just shy and retiring ?

[mikealdren]

and let's not forget LvB, a truly great pianist who also played the viola

[Roger Webb]

So, yet another viola-playing composer to add to Bach, Mozart, Vaughan Williams, Hindemith, Bridge, Britten and Rebecca Clarke.

And Schubert....

.....Edit. and Mendelsohn