Saturday 26 June 2010 8:00 pm
Mein Vaterland
Nikolaus Harnoncourt inaugurates this year's styriarte.
Smetana: Má vlast (My Fatherland)
Vyšehrad (The High Castle)
Vltava (The Moldau)
Šárka
Z českých luhů a hájů (From Bohemia's Woods and Fields)
Tábor
Blaník
In rural seclusion and isolated by deafness, Smetana composed his six symphonic poems, comprising a single hymn to his homeland. Nikolaus Harnoncourt reinterprets “The Moldau” and its sister movements for the styriarte 2010. The springs of the Moldau bubble clear and unclouded once more through the transparent sound of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, softening the crust of the bombastically bloated late Romantic era. Smetana was deeply concerned with sincerity and when accused of being Wagnerian in 1882, the composer responded, “I am fully occupied with Smetanism and this style satisfies me when it is sincere!” His moving scores portray his homeland, her great history and her wonderful landscapes in the very moment of the Czech emancipation from the Austrian empire.
Idyllic landscapes, majestic fortresses and bloody battles provide Smetana with the material for his cycle. The singer Lumír, accompanied by the harp, begins the poem and sings the praises of Vyšehrad, the oldest Bohemian royal fortress in Prag. The second poem follows with the sounds of flutes evoking springs, gradually swelling to form the majestic Moldau, flowing past in the valley below. The forests along which the Moldau flows are the stage for the bloody Maidens’ War, where the Amazonian Queen Šárka lures an army into a deadly trap in the third poem. Smetana’s fourth poem, “From Bohemia's Woods and Fields”, was inspired by the beauties of the Czech countryside, while the fifth poem memorializes the Hussites, the religious freedom fighters of the Czech reformer Jan Huss, who had entrenched themselves in the city of Tábor. The final poem tells of King Wenceslas and his army of knights, who wait sleeping inside mount Blaník until they are needed to aid the Motherland in the hour of ultimate danger.
The ORF Klangwolke (cloud of sound): Radio Steiermark will broadcast live in picture and sound on Saturday, June 26, 9.03 p.m.
The concert will be broadcast on Sunday, July 4, 11.03 a.m. on Ö1.
