I attended the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Ma Vlast (My Homeland) by the composer Bedřich Smetana on Thursday, September 30, 2010 at Carnegie Hall. My cousin and I were sitting all the way up in the balcony. When I looked down, there were no empty seats. The musicians came out and sat on the stage. The concertmaster came out to tune the orchestra. After they were ready, everyone started to applaud when Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the conductor, made his entrance. I was very excited since it has been a long time since I attended a classical music concert, and I had never seen a performance at Carnegie Hall.
The Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt was born in Berlin, and spent his early years in Graz, Austria. He studied cello in Vienna, and joined the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1952. In the 1970’s he taught at the Mozarteum University in Saltzburg and began to earn his stellar reputation as both an opera and orchestral conductor (The Program 31).
The composer who wrote Ma Vlast (which means “My Homeland”) is Bedřich Smetana. He became the conductor of the Royal Provincial Czech Theatre in 1866. By 1874 he started losing his hearing and eventually became deaf. Despite this handicap, he continued to compose. In 1879, he had finished Ma Vlast and dedicated this work to the city of Prague (The Program 26). Ma Vlast is a set of six symphony tone poems celebrating Smetana’s love of his country: Vyšehrad (The High Castle), Vltava (The Moldau), Šárka, Z českých luhů a hájů (From Bohemia’s Fields and Forests), Tábor and Blaník.
Ma Vlast used a wide variety of instruments. Among the string instruments there are violins, violas, cellos, double basses and harps. Included brass instruments are: trumpets, French horns, trombones, and tuba. Woodwind instruments combine flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons. Finally, the percussion instruments used are timpani, cymbals, bass drum, and triangle.
The concert opened with the first poem, Vyšehrad (The High Castle) which describes the castle in Prague. The key is in e minor and set in duple meter. It begins with the sounds of the harp on each side of the stage to perform the opening arpeggios. After a couple dominant chords, the wind instruments take up the theme and are followed by the strings until the whole orchestra is engaged. In the next theme, the tempo is faster and becomes an exciting, energetic march. The climax is cut short by a descending passage, and the music falls quiet. Then the harps are heard again as they were at the opening and ends quietly. I noted that the four note motif introduced at the beginning is also heard again at the end.
The next piece performed was Vltava (The Moldau). This movement describes the river that runs through Prague, where the castle comes into sight. This work takes the form of a rondo (A-B-A-C-A). (A), it starts with two flutes that portray the two brooks that are the source of the river. The plucking of harp is heard in p represents the movement of the water. Violins doubled by oboes soon join in. In (B), the string quartets enter after the introduction of horns to describe the dance to symphonic music. In the music I can hear the same motif that is played in the beginning of Vyšehrad joined by the theme recalled from (A). The sound of music crescendos and the tempo moves faster in (C) imitating the sound of the river reaching St. John’s rapids. At the end, the main theme (A) is forcefully announced in the wind and brass instruments.
Šárka is about the legend of a girl who is thirsty for vengeance because of her lover’s infidelity. Starting from this piece on, there is no longer harp playing for the balance of poems. This piece is in duple meter in the key of a minor. It starts with many instruments in ff to sound angry and upset. Soon afterwards, the string instruments join in making the music, flow as if in story-telling. The tempo increases and become more rapid to indicate the change of emotion. Towards the end it reaches a climax before the whole orchestra merges in and ends abruptly.
After the intermission, the fourth poem Z českých luhů a hájů (meaning “From Bohemia’s Fields and Forests”) began. This piece is in duple meter in g minor. It describes the Czech countryside. Unlike Vltava, the music here begins slow and steady painting the picture of the open field. Brass instruments take up the theme after strings dominate for more than a minute. The string instruments opening with a musical motive that gives a nice opening to this piece. The percussion instruments play a very important role in this tone poem; the bass sound of tympani gives the calming impression of land. It ends with many sounds of cymbals.
The last two poems Tábor and Blaník, are usually performed together as a cohesive pair, without each other they are not complete. Both pieces are performed in the key of d minor and duple meter. In Tábor, brass instruments begin in lento pp, with occasional crescendoling ascending scales. The end of this work has recurring theme that has the rhythmic pattern of Short-Short-Long-Long (SSLL). “‘Tábor’ is a character portrait of Hussite warriors, fourteenth century religious zealot dissidents who founded a stronghold and defended it to the death. And ‘Blaník’ is the mountain where the warriors sleep until the day when they might again be summoned to rally and defend their people in time of need” (Gutmann). Blaník begins exactly as Tábor ends; it gives an idea of which was left unresolved, and now continuing on to tie these two pieces nicely together. The end of the movement is played in presto, making the mood cheerful and exciting.
At the end of the performance, the audience stood up and applauded for a very long time, and asked for an encore. Mr. Harnoncourt came out three times to thank the audience, but an encore was never played. Everyone looked disappointed including me.
I attended this concert was because out of all the classical music, Orchestra music is my favorite. When I bought the tickets, I didn’t know who Bedřich Smetana was. The whole six symphony tone poems were all so beautiful; I liked them all so much. The music gives vivid pictures of place, water, love, land, religion and mountains that tied together so well as a whole. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra really did a wonderful job performing these pieces. I especially loved the 2nd piece Vltava. When it started playing until the violin and oboe joined in, my heart was moved and my eye was hot and filled with the tears, it brings the memory from deep inside of me. I heard this piece of music when I was much younger, but never had a chance to find out the name of music and the composer, now I do. I downloaded the music from the internet and been listening to this music everyday at work ever since. I really am looking forward to my next concert.
Works Cited
Ma Vlast (My Homeland), Bedřich Smetana. The Program. Carnegie Hall 30 Sept.
2010: 23-33. Print.
Gutmann, Peter. “Ma Vlast, Bedřich Smetana.” Classicalnotes.net. 2004. Web. 22 Oct
2010.
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