Historic musical bits: Bedřich Smetana : “Die Moldau” / Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic

 Bedřich Smetana : “Die Moldau” / Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic

Michel R.

Uploaded on Sep 19, 2010

Bedřich Smetana “Die Moldau” conducted by Herbert von Karajan (with the Vienna Philharmonic) (1985)

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  • “Smetana: The Moldau (From Má Vlast)” by Herbert von Karajan (AmazonMP3)

historical musical bits (1985): Bedřich Smetana : “Die Moldau” / Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic, great compositions/performances

Bedřich Smetana : “Die Moldau” / Karajan / Vienna Philharmonic

Michel R.

Uploaded on Sep 19, 2010

Bedřich Smetana “Die Moldau” conducted by Herbert von Karajan (with the Vienna Philharmonic) (1985)

Saint of the Day for Sunday, January 25th, 2015 : St. Peter Thomas

Saint of the Day for Sunday, January 25th, 2015

St. Peter Thomas

Simple coat of arms of the Carmelite Order (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Carmelite Latinpatriarch and papal legate. Peter was born in Gascony, France and joined the Carmelites while still a young man. In 1342 he was appointed procurator of the order and, from Avignon, he … continue reading

More Saints of the Day

St. Peter Thomas St. Amarinus St. Apollo St. Artemas St. Bretannion St. Donatus St. Dwynwen

St. Eochod of Galloway St. Juventius & Maximus St. Maurus St. Poppo St. Praejectus St. Racho

Bedrich Smetana－Overture from “The Bartered Bride” , great compositions/performances

Bedrich Smetana－Overture from “The Bartered Bride”

irie1948

 

Mariss Jansons－Berliner Philharmoniker
***********************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Bedřich Smetana

The Bartered Bride (Czech: Prodaná nevěsta, The Sold Fiancée) is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866 in a two-act format with spoken dialogue. Set in a country village and with realistic characters, it tells the story of how, after a late surprise revelation, true love prevails over the combined efforts of ambitious parents and a scheming marriage broker. The opera was not immediately successful, and was revised and extended in the following four years. In its final version, premiered in 1870, it gained rapid popularity and eventually became a worldwide success.

Czech national opera until this time had been represented only by a number of minor, rarely performed works. This opera, Smetana’s second, was part of his quest to create a truly Czech operatic genre. Smetana’s musical treatment makes considerable use of traditional Bohemian dance forms such as the polka and furiant, although he largely avoids the direct quotation of folksong. He nevertheless created music which was accurately folk-like, and is considered by Czechs to be quintessentially Czech in spirit. The overture, often played as a concert piece independently from the opera, was, unusually, composed before almost any of the other music had been written.

After a performance at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition of 1892, the opera achieved international recognition. It was performed in Chicago in 1893, London in 1895 and reached New York in 1909, subsequently becoming the first, and for many years the only, Czech opera in the general repertory. Many of these early international performances were in German, under the title Die verkaufte Braut, and the German-language version continues to be played and recorded. A German film of the opera was made in 1932 by Max Ophüls.^[1]

Context

Until the middle 1850s Bedřich Smetana was known in Prague principally as a teacher, pianist and composer of salon pieces. His failure to achieve wider recognition in the Bohemian capital led him to depart in 1856 for Sweden, where he spent the next five years.^[2] During this period he extended his compositional range to large-scale orchestral works in the descriptive style championed by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner.^[3] Liszt was Smetana’s long-time mentor; he had accepted a dedication of the latter’s Opus 1: Six Characteristic Pieces for Piano in 1848, and had encouraged the younger composer’s career since then.^[4] In September 1857 Smetana visited Liszt in Weimar, where he met Peter Cornelius, a follower of Liszt’s who was working on a comic opera, Der Barbier von Bagdad.^[5] Reportedly, their discussions centred on the need to create a modern style of comic opera, as a counterbalance to Wagner’s new form of music drama. A comment was made by the Viennese conductor Johann von Herbeck to the effect that Czechs were incapable of making music of their own, a remark which Smetana took to heart: “I swore there and then that no other than I should beget a native Czech music.”^[5]

Smetana did not act immediately on this aspiration. The announcement that a Provisional Theatre was to be opened in Prague, as a home for Czech opera and drama pending the building of a permanent National Theatre, influenced his decision to return permanently to his homeland in 1861.^[6] He was then spurred to creative action by the announcement of a prize competition, sponsored by the Czech patriot Jan von Harrach, to provide suitable operas for the Provisional Theatre. By 1863 he had written The Brandenburgers in Bohemia to a libretto by the Czech nationalist poet Karel Sabina, whom Smetana had met briefly in 1848.^[6][7] The Brandenburgers, which was awarded the opera prize, was a serious historical drama, but even before its completion Smetana was noting down themes for use in a future comic opera. By this time he had heard the music of Cornelius’s Der Barbier, and was ready to try his own hand at the comic genre.^[8]

Smetana: Má Vlast: Vltava (Die Moldau) – gesamt: great compositions/performances

Smetana: Má Vlast: Vltava (Die Moldau) – gesamt

AUS DEM HAUSE STYRIARTE

Uploaded on Nov 11, 2011/19,712 views

Bedřich Smetana: Má Vlast (Mein Vaterland):
Vltava (Die Moldau)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dirigent
styriarte 2010
***************************************************
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bedřich Smetana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Má vlast (Czech pronunciation: [maː vlast], meaning “My homeland”) is a set of six symphonic poems composed between 1874 and 1879 by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. While it is often presented as a single work in six movements and – with the exception of Vltava – is almost always recorded that way, the six pieces were conceived as individual works. They had their own separate premieres between 1875

English: gravestone of Bedřich Smetana (Vyšehrad, Prague) Deutsch: Grabstätte von Bedřich Smetana (Vyšehrad, Prag) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

and 1880; the premiere of the complete set took place on 5 November 1882 in Prague, under Adolf Čech, who had also conducted two of the individual premieres.

In these works Smetana combined the symphonic poem form pioneered by Franz Liszt with the ideals of nationalistic music which were current in the late nineteenth century. Each poem depicts some aspect of the countryside, history, or legends of Bohemia.

Vltava

The Vltava in Prague

Vltava, also known by its German name Die Moldau (or The Moldau), was composed between 20 November and 8 December 1874 and was premiered on 4 April 1875 under Adolf Čech. It is about 12 minutes long, and is in the key of E minor.

In this piece, Smetana uses tone painting to evoke the sounds of one of Bohemia’s great rivers.^[2] In his own words:

“The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer’s wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night’s moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John’s Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Labe (or Elbe, in German).^[3]”

The piece contains Smetana’s most famous tune. It is an adaptation of the melody La Mantovana, attributed to the Italian renaissance tenor, Giuseppe Cenci,^[4] which, in a borrowed Moldovan form, was also the basis for the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah. The tune also appears in major in an old folk Czech song Kočka leze dírou (“The Cat Crawls Through the Hole”), and Hanns Eisler used it for his “Song of the Moldau”.

 

Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66: great compositions/performances

Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66

  Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Paavo Järvi

Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66 14’52

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• make music part of your life series: Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66
• Make Music Part of Your Life – Series: Antonín Dvořák – Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70, B. 141
• Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 “From The New World” / Karajan – Vienna Philarmonic : great compositions/performances

Bedřich Smetana – Ma Vlast – Vltava “Moldau” – EMH Classical Music: make music part of your lifr series

from

EMHClassicalMusic

Bedřich Smetana – Ma Vlast – Vltava “Moldau” – EMH Classical Music

http://www.EMHClassicalMusic.com
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• Fabulous Compositions/composers: Smetana Ma Vlast – Moldau
• Vltava (The Moldau) by Bedrich Smetana – Vilem Tausky: Conductor

Bedřich Smetana – Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15: make music part of your life series

FROM:  kardamom5

Bedřich Smetana – Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15

Bedřich Smetana – Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15
by Roma Piano Trio
00.00 I. Moderato assai
11.50 II. Allegro, ma non agitato
19.58 III. Finale: Presto

Roma Piano Trio:
Angela Pardo, Piano
Alessandro D’Andrea, Violin
Marco Damiani, Cello

2004
GENUIN Musikproduktion

To buy it:
CD http://www.amazon.com/Smetana-B-Piano…
Digital https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sme…

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• Bedřich Smetana – Vltava
• Bedrich Smetana: Louisa’s Polka

Antonín Dvořák – Sonatina in G major, Op. 100: make music part of your life series

Antonín Dvořák – Sonatina in G major, Op. 100

Bohuslav Matousek, violin. Petr Adamec, piano

Antonín Dvořák – Sonatina in G major, Op. 100
1. Allegro risoluto 5’52
2. Larghetto 4’02
3. Scherzo 2’56
4. Allegro 6’20

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• make music part of your life series: Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66
• make music part of your life series: Franz Schubert： Quartettsatz in C-moll, D. 703 and Antonín Dvořák：String Quartet No.14, Op.105
• Antonin Dvorak and his “New World Symphony”
• Dvořák violin concerto

make music part of your life series: Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66

[youtube.com/watch?v=k8-wQZUQ99A]

Antonín Dvořák -Scherzo Capriccioso, Op. 66

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Paavo Järvi

 

Related articles

• great compostions/performances: Dvořák / String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “American” (Cleveland Quartet)
• Dvořák: Symphony No. 9, in E minor, “From The New World”: Karajan – Vienna Philarmonic
• make music part of your life series: Franz Schubert： Quartettsatz in C-moll, D. 703 and Antonín Dvořák：String Quartet No.14, Op.105

great compostions/performances: Dvořák / String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “American” (Cleveland Quartet)

[youtube.com/watch?v=DxtAHpYIXdU]
Dvořák / String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “American” (Cleveland Quartet)

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904):

String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96, B. 179 “American” (1893)

00:00 – Allegro ma non troppo
09:08 – Lento
16:14 – Molto vivace
20:00 – Finale. Vivace ma non troppo

Performed by the Cleveland Quartet (Telarc, 1991).

“From its first performance, Dvořák’s  ‘American’ Quartet has enjoyed lasting popularity for its tunefulness, its rhythmic verve, and its happy interplay of the four instruments. Given all the publicity afforded Dvořák’s ideas on American music, one might reasonably ask just how ‘American’ Op. 96 really is. A theme in the third movement qualifies as having been borrowed from an American: ‘a damned bird (red, only with black wings)’ that kept singing where he was working. Dvořák worked the native bird’s song into the scherzo (measures 21 and following). Beyond that we are on less firm ground. Many of the themes are entirely or nearly pentatonic, and some have wanted to see in this the influence of the black spiritual. But in fact Bohemian music is just as frequently pentatonic, and similar themes can be found in Dvořák’s music long before he came to America. The opening of the work was based on Smetana‘s First Quartet, though Dvořák’s mood is entirely diferent — lighter and livelier throughout, with the poignant exception of the lyrical second movement, the plaintive melody of which — echoed between violin and cello — is a wonderful foil to the high spirits of the remaining three movements.” – Steven Ledbetter

Painting: Airborne (1996), Andrew Wyeth

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• Schumann and Dvorak
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make music part of your life series: Smetana – Die Moldau (Karajan and the Berlin Philarmonic Orchestra)

[youtube.com/watch?v=gTKsHwqaIr4]

Smetana – Die Moldau (Karajan)

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• The River Moldau: A Flowing Visit To Prague
• My Prague Past

make music part of your life series: Bedřich Smetana Má Vlast My Fatherland 6. BLANÍK, Rafael Kubelík

[youtube.com/watch?v=Mx7gDjLcwHY]

Smetana: Má Vlast – Harnoncourt/RCO(2010Live)

Smetana: Má Vlast – Harnoncourt/RCO(2010Live)

 

 

Smetana, Kubelik:Great Compositions/Performances: Ma Vlast (From Bohemia’s Fields and Meadows, 4/6)

[youtube.com/watch?v=jCRFe07Aot0]
Smetana, Kubelik: Ma Vlast (From Bohemia‘s Fields and Meadows, 4/6)
IV: Z Ceskych Luhu a Haju (From Bohemia’s Fields and Meadows)
Bedrich Smetana, composer
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik
Studio Recording, 1952 (Mercury Living Presence)

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• Patriotic music: What is Britain’s equivalent of Ma Vlast?
• Fabulous Compositions/composers: Smetana Ma Vlast – Moldau

Great Compositions/Performances: Smetana, Kubelik: Ma Vlast (The Moldau, 2/6)

[youtube.com/watch?v=HVJePP3MRCY]

From:  Ma Vlast:
II: Vltava (The Moldau)
Bedrich Smetana, composer
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik
Studio Recording, 1952 (Mercury Living Presence)

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Make Music Part of Your Life Series: Bartered Bride Blachut Cervinková Ancerl Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra 1947

[youtube.com/watch?v=iSDlIbTy5_Y&list=TL-MtFaNsE4LDiEQB1T4YjN0wYqSuNH_iQ]

Bartered Bride Prodaná nevěsta Karel Ancerl

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra 1947

Jenik – Beno Blachut
Marenka – Ludmila Cervinková
Krusina – Ladislav Mraz
Ludmilla – Jarmila Palivcova
Micha – Josef Heriban
Hata – Vera Krilová
Vasek – Rudolf Vonásek
Kecal – Karel Kalas
Circus master – Bohumir Vich
Esmeralda – Jarmilla Pechová
Indian – Jan Soumar
Smetana

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Make Music Part of Your Life Series: The Moldau/Vltava by Bedřich Smetana – Symphonic poem from “Ma Vlast- My Country”

Vltava– Ma Vlast:  Bedřich Smetana – Symphonic poem
The London Symphony Orchestra,  Alfred Scholz conducting

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GREAT COMPOSITIONS/PERFORMANCES: Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 “From The New World” / Karajan · Vienna Philarmonic

Great presentation of the Great Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von Karajan, playing the 9th Symphony of Antonin Dvorak “From the new world”. 

Gran presentación de la Filarmónica de Viena conducida por Herbert von Karajan, interpretando la novena sinfonía de Antonin Dvorak “Sinfonía del Nuevo Mundo”.

(C) Telemonde 1992, UMG and all their respective owners. No commercial use of this material.

(0:37) 1st mvt (Adagio, Allegro Molto)
(10:42) 2nd mvt (Largo)
(23:30) 3rd mvt (Scherzo, Molto Vivace)
(32:07) 4rth mvt (Allegro con fuoco)

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Bedrich Smetana: Louisa’s Polka

Bedřich Smetana (March 2, 1824 — May 12, 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country’s aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music.

When he was young, his father sent him to Prague to study in the autumn of 1839. After his father discovered that the young son was not paying much attention to his school, the father placed him temporarily with his uncle in Nové Město, where he enjoyed a brief romance with his cousin Louisa. He commemorated their passion in Louisa’s Polka, Smetana’s earliest complete composition that has survived.

This is my way to commemorate Smetana’s birthday (March 2, 1824) by combining his melodious dance music with some of the great dance clips from Hollywood films.

Music: Louisa’s Polka — Bedrich Smetana
Performed by Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Frantisek Jilek

Visual excerpts taken from these videos:
Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell: “Jukebox Dance” — Film: Broadway Melody (1940)
Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron: “Sluefoot” — Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell: “Begin the Beguine” — Film: Broadway Melody (1940)
Fred Astaire and Marjorie Reynolds : “Be Careful, It’s My Heart”– Holiday Inn (1942)
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: “Too Hot to Handle” — Roberta (1935).
Lisa Miles and Tim Balfour – A Variation on Fred and Ginger for the third act of Opera Australia’s production of Die Fledermaus at the Sydney Opera House.
Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines — Film: White Nights (1985)
Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth: “So Near and Yet So Far” — Film: You Will Never Get Rich (1941)

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FABULOUS COMPOSITIONS/COMPOSERS: SMETANA MA VLAST – MOLDAU

 

Statue of Bedřich Smetana by the Vltava river (Photo credit: Jorge Lascar)

Má vlast (Czech pronunciation: [maː vlast], meaning”Mycountry/homeland”) is a set of six symphonic poems composed between 1874 and 1879 by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. While it is often presented as a single work in six movements and – with the exception of Vltava – is almost always recorded that way, the six pieces were conceived as individual works. They had their own separate premieres between 1875 and 1880; the premiere of the complete set took place on 5 November 1882 in Prague, under Adolf Čech, who had also conducted two of the individual premieres.

 

In these works Smetana combined the symphonic poem form pioneered by Franz Liszt with the ideals of nationalistic music which were current in the late nineteenth century. Each poem depicts some aspect of the countryside, history, or legends of Bohemia.

 

Vltava [DIE MOLDAU]

 

The Vltava in Prague

 

Vltava, also known by its German name Die Moldau (or The Moldau), was composed between 20 November and 8 December 1874 and was premiered on 4 April 1875 under Adolf Čech. It is about 12 minutes long, and is in the key of E minor.

 

In this piece, Smetana uses tone painting to evoke the sounds of one of Bohemia’s great rivers.^[2] In his own words:

 

The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer’s wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night’s moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John’s Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Labe (orElbe, in German).

 

 

The piece contains Smetana’s most famous tune. It is an adaptation of the melody La Mantovana, attributed to the Italian renaissance tenor Giuseppe Cenci (also known as Giuseppino),^[3] which, in a borrowedMoldovan form, was also the basis for the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah. The tune also appears in major in an old folk Czech song Kočka leze dírou (“The Cat Crawls Through the Hole”), and Hanns Eislerused it for his “Song of the Moldau”.
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• Czechoslovakia Today
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• Smetana Overture to ‘The Bartered Bride’
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Antonín Dvořák – Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 10

Symfonie č. 3 Es dur, Op. 10

00:00 Allegro moderato
11:33 Adagio molto, tempo di marcia
28:27 Finale. Allegro vivace

Czech philharmonic orchestra, Václav Neumann
–
Česká filharmonie, Václav Neumann
EN
Symphony no.3 in E flat major was premiered by Bedřich Smetana in 1874. It was a great moment for young Dvořák, because it was his first big score played in public. You can heard in this symphony typical dvořák’s melodies but also some inspiration from Liszt or Wagner (work with motives, harmonies).

 

BEDŘICH SMETANA – VLTAVA

Bedřich Smetana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  

“Smetana” redirects here. For other uses, see Smetana (disambiguation).

Portrait of Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana (Czech pronunciation: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] ( listen); 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country’s aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride, for the symphonic cycle Má vlast (“My Fatherland”), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer’s native land, and for his First String Quartet From My Life.