Editions from Smetana’s “Má vlast” (My Country) and Dvořák’s “Sedm skladeb pro malý orchestr” (Seven Pieces for Small Orchestra)
Smetana’s “Šárka” and “Z českých luhů a hájů” (From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields)
Following the publication of new edition of Smetana’s ever-popular Vltava in 2014, Bärenreiter have issued new editions of other parts of the cycle “Má Vlast”. New scores are now available of “Šárka” and “Z českých luhů a hájů”, the third and fourth pieces in the cycle. As many people remember, Smetana began work on this great project in 1874 exactly at the point when he was afflicted by deafness. Although this caused him considerable distress, he composed the first two symphonic poems “Vyšehrad“ and “Vltava” very quickly, and the next two, “Šárka” and “Z českých luhů a hájů”, followed in 1875. As we know from the case of Beethoven, deafness can sharpen a composer’s inner hearing, and it is clear that Smetana too felt a new intimacy with his own music in his later years.
He was always a careful composer, so his manuscripts are legible and complete. If one may fault him, he applied so many marks of expression to his music that it is sometimes hard for the editor and performer to interpret the difference between the many types of staccato, marcato, tenuto (etc) indications, often applied in combination to the same note. Almost no note in Smetana’s manuscripts is left without an expressive mark of some kind, so the editor’s task is to distinguish and reproduce each one, and the performer’s task is to interpret them.
An interesting aspect of these symphonic poems is that Smetana prepared versions for piano four-hands of each of them as well as the orchestral scores. When these works were published in his lifetime, therefore, we have four principal sources, of which the autograph full score is always the principal and most authoritative source. The full score of “Šárka” was printed in 1888, after Smetana’s death; without his supervision the printing was very inaccurate. In the case of “Z českých luhů a hájů”, the score was printed in 1881, and although Smetana did not correct the proof, it is much closer to the autograph than that of “Šárka”.
A peculiarity of Smetana’s orchestration lies in his treatment of the cellos. This section he usually divides into first and seconds, like the violins, with the seconds usually playing with the double basses while the firsts have an independent tenor line or share with the violas. He was reluctant to give the double basses an independent line, in other words, which is perhaps a reflection on the state of double bass playing in Prague in his lifetime. But we do not find the same caution in Dvořák, so perhaps this is a hint that even before he was deaf Smetana had difficulty hearing the lowest sounds.
Hugh Macdonald
Antonín Dvořák: “Sedm skladeb pro malý orchestra” (Seven Pieces for Small Orchestra)
Between November 1862 and July 1871 Antonín Dvořák was a violist in the orchestra of the Provisional Theatre in Prague, where a need arose for entr’acte music scored for small forces at this time. In 1867 Dvořák composed his “modest thoughts for a very modest orchestra” (as they are described in the score), which could serve this purpose. However, the composition only came to light in 1951 in the papers of the publisher Mojmír Urbánek, and was first published in 1989 as part of the Complete Edition of Antonín Dvořák’s Works by Supraphon in Prague. The fact that Dvořák did not give the autograph manuscript a title, together with the unusual form of the pieces, gave rise over time to doubts about whether the works were really intended for use in the theatre, and the editors chose the title “Sedm skladeb pro malý orchestra” [Seven Pieces for Small Orchestra]. The newly-set full score, based on the Critical Edition, with newly-produced parts now means that this rarity is widely available for performance.
BP
(from [t]akte 2/2018 – tranlation: Elizabeth Robinson)