Track Listing

1. No 1, Vysebrad
2. No 2, Vltava (Moldau)
3. No 3, Sárka
4. No 4, From Bohemia's Woods and Fields
5. No 5, Tábor
6. No 6, Blaník

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155211 in Music
• Released on: 1996-10-15
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Excellent
I wanted to get a recording of "The Moldau", a haunting Romantic orchestral piece, so I went to Amazon for the reviews. A handy thing, that, although reviews have to be filtered because they mainly reflect the taste of the reviewer. But the more articulate ones give you an idea of what to expect. I went for a Rafael Kubelik recording from 1952 in mono. One microphone. He lasted 3 years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra but was considered too modern in his repertoire. And he over-reached in his other duties as mentioned in the liner notes in the CD. This was in the early '50s! Not much of a time for innovation as far as the public was concerned (although some very good artistic work came out of this time, despite the Red scare, conformity, etc.)

I have heard maybe four versions of "The Moldau", the second part of the Ma Vlast (my country) tone poem cycle from the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. He was a contemporary of Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korssakoff. This recording blows you away, I highly recommend it.The strings are crisp, the brass is right there and not over done. No miscues I could notice anywhere. The tempo has a certain realness to it, the phrasing is superb and very hard to coordinate in most orchestras. This recording is much better than two of the others I have heard on radio, the third one (I could not get the name of the conductor and orchestra) may be almost up to it in quality and feeling but maybe it is not available at Amazon. It is hard to believe the full sound in this mono. I usually am put off by monaural recordings even if conducted well, wanting to hear the fullness of "2-D" sound and imagining the musicians in their locations. If you haven't heard "The Moldau" (named for the Vltava River), or even if you have, I would go for this.

Grab It While It's Still Available
I own three performances of Ma Vlast--Ancerl's with the Czech Phil, Kubelik with Boston, and now this one (I also intend to acquire Kubelik's final recording--the live performance on Supraphon--as well). Each one is superb but this is the only one that actually moved me to tears. The performance is PERFECT, as are the sonics. Don't let the fact that this is a monaural recording affect your decision about whether or not to purchase this disk because if anything, it ENHANCES this performance (go figure). There's an in-your-face immediacy that I haven't found in my other two readings that's very powerful and which is due entirely to the way it's recorded. Trust me, you won't miss the separation. And the pre-Reiner CSO simply must be heard to be believed--it's a very different animal, somehow more refined than during Reiner's tenure. I think it's safe to write that this disk is essential listening for those who want to lay claim to knowing this work.
I like to refer to Mercury Living Presence recordings as "audio Technicolor"; the sound is bigger and more vivid than anything one is likely to experience live. There's nothing "natural" about the sound of these performances. They're not to everyone's taste and they're often not considered reference works but I love them and am thrilled and grateful that so many of the mono recordings in Mercury's catalog have made it to CD. If Mrs. Fine pays any attention to these reviews and is taking requests, may I respectfully suggest Kubelik's Bloch?

A Ma Vlast that is as amazing as this CD remaster
This Kubelik recording of Smetana's epic cycle of symphonic poems is in itself one of the most amazing and inspired performances of the work on record. The late conductor was himself a Czechman, and you can feel his characteristic idiomatic flari on all his recordings of this work, including on here. Kubelik elicits peerless playing from his Chicago players, and you can often feel the effectiveness in the sound in painting a well-detailed picture of the Czech landscape. Equally amazing is the sound of the half-century-old Mercury monaural recording, because while the tape hiss has been kept at a minimum, you can still feel the orchestra's living presence and wide dynamic range without the extraneous intrusions that are often anomolous with monaural recordings.

The opening harp flourish in Vysherad sets the cycle off to a flying start. Every moment of this poem sees Kubelik encouraging the orchestra to give it a sweeping momentu to make it spine-tingling. Kubelik also enables the much-overplayed Vltava to sound fresh and new with a few flicks of his baton, and indeed he enables the piece to be played rapturously and seductively. The thrill and adreanaline of Sarka and the kaliedascopic and energetic lyricism of From Bohemia's Woods and Fields are engaging and inviting, without sounding boring and laboured, and they all lead up to the thrilling concluding movements Tabor and Blonik, where Kubelik is at his best, building up the tension to keep the listener in suspense when following the Hussite struggle. The two pieces are played with the fervour that they deserve, and the last few thrilling moments of Blonik crown a performance of Ma Vlast that is sure to become a benchmark standard for a long time to come.

To sum everything up, I can safely say that the monaural recording still sounds good, and this thrilling recording of Ma Vlast is sure to find a happy home in the libraries of everyone who loves soul-stirring Czech orchestral music.