Classical Music

Classical Music

TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 OVERTURE, ET

'This is a superb disc. There have been distinguished collections of Smetana's symphonic poems but none quite to compare with this in excitement, richness of detail, sonic spectacle - how well Smetana writes for the brass! Not to be missed,' Gramophone on Volume One. Volume one of this series was an Editor's Choice in Gramophone and here Gianandrea Noseda conducts his second instalment in his Smetana Orchestral Works series. This latest programme is made up of the familiar Bartered Bride Overture and Dances with the overtures and ballets of his lesser-known operas, including his first opera The Brandenburgers - performed with the Ballet from Act I, The Kiss - which was his first collaboration with the brilliant young librettist and poet, Eliska Krasnohorska, and The Devil's Wall all of which offer Smetana's masterful orchestration, panache and virtuosity. They are performed with assurance by the BBC Philharmonic. Also available: CHAN 10413 Smetana: Orchestral Works, Volume One.

Within a mere few years, Petr Popelka has established himself as one of the world's most exciting young conductors. Serving as principal conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Symphoniker, he has also appeared as a guest with prominent European and American orchestras, as well as at opera houses worldwide. Popelka does not view Bedrich Smetana's legacy as an obligatory Czech national classic, but rather as an object of love and vital artistic quest. "His ultimate masterpiece, My Country, should be approached a bit like an opera, as a great story... As a cycle of tone poems based on the theme of the homeland, it is absolutely unique in the history of music. Most significantly, there is not a work written with greater love." Popelka's recording is not just yet another addition to the immense number of recordings of My Country. Bringing to bear his great musicality and acute sense of detail, the conductor and the orchestra have modelled a truly exceptional form. Popelka's album features other germs too. String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, "From My Life", hailing from Smetana's mature period, when the composer was completely deaf, in George Szell's brilliant orchestration. In contrast, Smetana's early music is represented by the Triumphal Symphony, dedicated to the wedding of the 24-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph I to Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, and three "Swedish" Liszt-inspired symphonic poems, based on dramas as immense as Shakespeare's Richard III and Schiller's Wallenstein. The extraordinary album marks the 200th anniversary of Smetana's birth. Lovers of spatial sound will certainly relish streaming My Country in the Dolby Atmos format. Petr Popelka conducts Smetana - with love, deep feeling and sense for detail

Complete Piano Works, vol. 4

Complete Piano Works, vol. 6

Complete Piano Works, vol. 1

Complete Piano Works, vol. 5

Complete Piano Works, vol. 2

Complete Piano Works, vol. 3

Classical Music

Classical Music

The sixth part of the Bed�ich Smetana complete piano works series presents pieces composed in the 1840s, the time of the composer's intensive studies and the Dedicated to various persons (including Kate�ina Kola�ova, Smetana's great love and future wife) are the Stammbuchblatter, lovely commemorative album leaves. Some of the pieces (Romance in B flat major, Woodland Feelings and Impressions) were published immediately, others were revised B. Smetana and published later. Also dating from this period are the composer's first larger virtuoso pieces (Allegro capriccioso, Caprice in G minor) and major work, the cycle Six m sent the autograph to Franz Liszt, who accepted the dedication with pleasure. The nimble hands of the pianist Jitka �echova make ring the sheer virtuosity and engrossing poetics of the young Smetana's piano works.

Classical Music