Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
The Bartered Bride – Overture
Wallenstein’s Camp
‘The Moldau’ (Vltava) from Má Vlast
‘From Bohemia’s Fields and Forests’ from Má Vlast *
String Quartet No 1 ‘From My Life’ (orch. by George Szell (1897-1970))
NBC Symphony Orchestra/George Szell
* Boston Symphony Orchestra/George Szell
rec. live, 8 March 1941 & 13 January 1942, Studio 8-H, Radio City, New York; *19 January 1945, Symphony Hall, Boston
Mono AAD
SOMM Ariadne 5032 [75]
This year, SOMM have already marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gustav Holst with a very valuable album of live archive performances of his works (review). They are also part way through a fascinating six-volume series of archive recordings of music by Anton Bruckner (review ~ review~ review ~ review). Here, they turn the spotlight on another composer born in 1824, Bedřich Smetana. Moreover, in so doing, they add to their excellent series of historic concert performances conducted by George Szell.
Perhaps of greatest interest, on account of its rarity value, is Szell’s orchestration of Smetana’s First String Quartet ‘From My Life’ (1876). Szell made this orchestral version when he and his wife arrived in the USA at around the time that the Second World War broke out. In his biography of the conductor, George Szell. A Life of Music (2011), Michael Charry relates that the Szells had not planned on relocating to the USA. After a series of guest conducting appearances in Australia in 1939, they intended to return to Scotland and Holland, where George Szell held orchestral conducting posts. However, in view of the deteriorating international situation, they deemed it prudent to travel via North America. Once it became clear that the war had made a return to Europe all-but impossible, they determined to stay, initially in New York. Szell’s diary was empty, though, and until he obtained an increasing number of conducting engagements, he filled his time with some teaching and also some personal projects. These included the orchestration not only of the Smetana quartet but also of Weber’s Perpetuum mobile. He also edited several of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances for Boosey and Hawkes and it was that publishing house which issued the scores of the Smetana and Weber pieces in 1941.
As Lani Spahr observes in his booklet essay, Szell made the Smetana orchestration into one of his ‘calling cards’ as he expanded his guest conducting engagements in the US. I learned from the Charry biography that ‘From My Life’ was included on his debut programmes with both the Boston Symphony (January 1943) and with the San Francisco Symphony (March 1953). It was also one of the works he played in an early guest conducting engagement in Cleveland during the 1944/45 season. What we have here, though, is the world premiere of the orchestration, given with the NBC Symphony in a broadcast concert from Studio 8H on 8 March 1941. I’d read about the orchestration before receiving this disc, but I wasn’t sure whether it was an arrangement “just” for string orchestra. In fact, it turns out that Szell used a full orchestral palette, including woodwind, horns, brass, timpani, percussion and strings.
Making this orchestration was not an impulse decision to fill some enforced ‘downtime’; on the contrary, Charry makes it clear that this was something that mattered to Szell. He states that the conductor had been considering this project for two years. He quotes comments that Szell made to an interviewer just prior to the premiere: “I considered all of the objections to such tampering with a composer’s work and I arrived at the conclusion that …it was almost a duty to arrange ‘From My Life’ for orchestra. The thematic material seems to me to call for the bigger, richer symphonic treatment.” That last comment comes out strongly, I think, in Szell’s performance. The first of the work’s four movements is marked Allegro vivo appassionato and the passionate quality in the writing certainly is a feature of the orchestra’s playing under Szell’s direction. Furthermore, there’s no doubt that the wider range of instrumental colours adds to the dramatic aspects of Smetana’s music.
The quartet’s second movement is a Polka and here horns, trumpets and timpani make a big contribution to the sturdy dance, while in the Trio the string playing is very suave. Naturally, Szell didn’t tamper with the ruminative unaccompanied cello solo at the start of the slow movement. The string section is well to the fore in Szell’s conception, but in mid-movement there’s imaginative use of woodwind and horns. Smetana’s vigorous finale is well suited to an orchestral guise. As I listened, I was even more aware than in the preceding movements that the scoring is the work of a musician who was very familiar with ‘Vltava’. The hushed ending comes off very well.
Szell recorded his arrangement commercially: Lani Spahr tells us that he set it down for Columbia with the Cleveland Orchestra in April 1949. I don’t know if this recording ever made it onto CD; I rather doubt it. It’s been most interesting to acquaint myself with it in this spirited and accomplished NBC performance.
The performances of the Overture to The Bartered Bride and ‘Vltava’ from Má Vast come from the same 1941 NBC concert. The overture bristles with energy. I suspect it was the opening work on the programme and that Szell was determined to make a strong first impression. He sets an exhilarating pace and clearly obtained great precision from the orchestra – precision, of course, being a hallmark of Toscanini’s orchestra. There’s also plenty of vigour when required in ‘Vltava’ though the poetic aspects are definitely not short-changed; that’s certainly true of the tranquil episode from 5:13. As you might expect from this conductor, the ‘Rapids’ episode is strongly projected, though hereabouts the musical turbulence rather overwhelms the recording.
The performance of Wallenstein’s Camp comes from a later NBC Symphony concert in January 1942. Lani Spahr tells us that this appears to be the only time in his career that Szell conducted this piece. To be honest, this isn’t a work that has ever interested me very much; it’s often too loud and brash for my taste. The recording itself doesn’t help in this respect; despite Spahr’s best efforts, the sound is over-bright. To judge by the audience’s enthusiastic reception of the performance, though, they found more to enjoy in the music than I do. Perhaps their response was occasioned more by the performance, which is razor-sharp.
‘From Bohemia’s Fields and Forests’ is taken from a Boston Symphony concert which Szell conducted in January 1945. The performance is a good one. Initially, it seemed to me that the treble is rather bright, though this didn’t persist – or maybe my ears adjusted. I felt that the microphones were too close; I’d have liked a bit more space around the orchestra’s sound, but that will be down to the source material. The recording still lets us get a good feel for Szell’s work with the BSO on this occasion.
In his aforementioned biography of Szell Michael Charry refers to Czech music as “the music of the land of Szell’s deepest affinity”. Of course, on this CD we hear him in the music of only one Czech composer, but these performances, to say nothing of Szell’s dedication on behalf of the Smetana string quartet, give substance to that judgement. One thing that caught my eye in the booklet essay was that Szell never conducted a complete performance of Má Vast; indeed, I’m not sure that ‘Tábor’ or ‘Blanik’ ever featured on one of his programmes. Maybe the simple reason is that in those days, performances of the complete cycle were rare events outside Czechoslovakia.
Lani Spahr has restored and remastered these recordings very successfully and, if that was not enough, has also authored the very useful booklet essay.
This is a valuable archive bicentenary tribute to Bedřich Smetana and also offers further interesting glimpses of George Szell’s work in his early days in the USA.
John Quinn
Previous review Jonathan Woolf
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