Druzecky / Prague Symphony Orch - Hunting Music of Old Czech Masters - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The story of the Prague Symphony Orchestra is closely related to the history of the Czech capital, which leaves an impression on their repertoire. After their successful recording of Karel Husa's Music for Prague 1968 (Supraphon, 2021), the orchestra and it's chief conductor are coming up with another album dedicated to Prague. This time, the program is focused on the late 19th century, i.e. The period when the Czech nation fought for it's language, culture, and identity within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The backbone of the record is Suk's monumental symphonic poem Praga, based on the Hussite chorale, InchKtož jsú Boží bojovníciInch (Ye Who Are Warriors of God); Vyšehrad from Smetana's famous cycle Má vlast (My Country); and a rarity Pohádka o Šemíku (A Tale of Šemík), which is a largely unknown symphonic poem based on an ancient Czech legend connected with Vyšehrad, by Otakar Ostrcil, composed when he was nineteen. And of course, there is Antonín Dvorák. In hardly any work of his is Dvorák as explicitly patriotic as in his overture My Home (which is not very well known either). It is based on the theme of the popular song InchKde domov muj,Inch which later became the Czech national anthem. Another rarity of this album is Dvorák's fanfare for the opening of the National Jubilee Exhibition in Prague. After their acclaimed recording of the composer's Slavonic Dances, the Prague Symphony Orchestra confirm that the Czech repertoire of late Romanticism is their native and most natural language. The romantic and legendary city of Prague on a record of the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - Best of Czech Classics Concertos [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/27/2009

Karel Husa - a Czech-born composer whose name resonates more on an international scale than in his native country. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Grawemeyer Award, he was commissioned to write music for the New York Philharmonic, and other distinguished orchestras and artists. The centenary of Karel Husa's birth is a unique opportunity to recall his remarkable fate and oeuvre. During World War II, he lived in Nazi-occupied Prague. Following his graduation from the Prague Conservatory, with a concert performed with the Prague Symphony Orchestra (1944), Husa left for Paris to study composition with Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger. The performance in Prague of his Three Frescoes with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in 1949 made it evident that Husa's music no longer fitted the Communist ideologues' pigeonholes. Yet Husa did not return to his homeland, opting instead to continue his studies abroad. Later on, he settled in the USA. When it comes to the Warsaw Pact armies' invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he got to hear about it on Detroit Radio. Husa expressed his dismay in Music for Prague 1968. The piece contains a quotation of the 15th-century Hussite war song Ktož jsú Boží bojovníci, by which the composer also referenced Václav Talich's emotional performance of Bedrich Smetana's My Country in Nazi-occupied Prague. Husa could only begin freely visiting his beloved Prague in the wake of the November 1989 Revolution, yet he pointed out that he kept strolling the city streets in his dreams and works. The present album maps Husa's creative periods between 1947 and 1983, and it features the very first studio recording of his Three Frescoes.