Orchestra (picc.2.2.2.2.
- 4.2.3.1. - timp.perc -
hp - str(vc divided))
SKU:
BR.EOS-20472-00
No. 2 from the
Symphonic Poem My
Fatherland. Composed
by Bedrich Smetana.
Edited by Milan Pospisil.
Softbound. Eulenburg
Orchestral Series.
Today, it is hard to
believe that Bedrich
Smetana kept receiving
rejections when he tried
to get his enormously
popular Moldau
printed.
Symphonic
poem; Romantic. Full
score. 84 pages. Duration
13'. Breitkopf and
Haertel #EOS 20472-00.
Published by Breitkopf
and Haertel
(BR.EOS-20472-00).
ISBN 9790004780008. 10
x 12.5
inches.
What is
also amazing is that the
first text-critical
edition prepared by the
Czech Smetana expert
Milan Pospisil in 1999,
which had entailed an
exhaustive evaluation of
the sources and been
given a full
text-critical editorial
treatment as a Eulenburg
study score, had no
resonance of any kind
among performers since no
performance material had
been published. After 15
years, Pospisils edition
is finally being
completed in a manner
suitable for practice:
with a conducting score
and orchestral parts
which will ensure that
all future performances
are based on a musical
text that is as reliable
as can
be.
The
work depicts the course
of the river Vltava,
beginning with its first
two sources, the cold and
warm Vltava, and the
confluence of the two
streams that join to form
a single river; then the
course of the Vltava
through forests and
meadows, and through open
countryside where a
peasant wedding is being
celebrated; water-sprites
dance by the light of the
moon; on the nearby
cliffs castles, mansions
and ruins rise proudly
into the air; the Vltava
eddies in the St John's
Rapids, then flows in a
broad stream as it
continues its course
towards Prague, where the
Vysehrad appears, before
the river finally
disappears into the
distance as it flows
majestically into the
Elbe.
Vltava
(The Moldau),
Smetana's best-known and
most frequently performed
orchestral work, was
written between 19
November and 8 December
1874, at a time when
Smetana was already
completely deaf. The
world premiere took place
in Prague on 4 April
1875, but the score was
not published until
1880.
