# Smetana : Festive Symphony .



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The other day I listened to my Supraphon recording of the "Festive Symphony " by Bedrich Smetana ( autocorrect changed his first name to "bedrock " !) .
It's Smetana's only symphony , and his opus 6, apparently an early work although the composer's individual voice can be heard . The notes provide very little information about the symphony and are mostly concerned with the other works on the CD by Smetana, Dvorak and the little known Frantisek Skroup , a Czech composer of an earlier generation whose operas were once popular in Bohemia, as the Czech republic was once called . 
The symphony is a most attractive work and lives up to its subtitle . It's a bright, cheerful , and yes, festive piece in the usual four movements . I don't recall hearing of any live performances anywhere , even in the Czech republic in recent years, although there is another recording on a label I can't recall with Lothar Zagrosek and the Vienna Radio orchestra . 
Mine is a superb analog recording by Karel Sejna ( pronounced shay-nah ) mad in I believe the 60s with the Czech Philharmonic . Sejna was born in the last years of the 19th century and lived I believe into the 70s . He had a big local reputation but never became an international podium star , and he left many fine recordings with the Czech Philharmonic and other Czech orchestras . 
I would be delighted if the music director of one of our great US orchestras would program it with his or her orchestra, but this might be problematic , because the symphony makes prominent use of the anthem of the Austro Hungarian empire , whose theme was appropriated by the Nazis as 
"Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles ". 
Haydn also made use of it in one of his most famous string quartets , and apparently the theme was borrowed from a Croatian folk song known to Haydn , as he had grown up in a part of the Austro Hungarian empire which was inhabited by many ethnic Croats . 
The famous melody is the principal theme of the slow movement . I wonder, would a performance of this work bother any living Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust or their children or other relatives if they happened to attend a performance of this symphony ? 
Possibly Joann Faletta , a conductor I have played horn under as a horn player years ago might take an interest in this symphony, as she is a tireless champion of lesser known orchestral works by so many different composers and even record it with her Buffalo Philharmonic for Naxos . 
By all means get either of these recordings if you can find them , and you can hear the Zagrosek recording on Youtube . You won't regret it !


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

I have the Theodore Kuchar recording of the symphony on a 3 CD set for Brilliant Classics with the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra made in 2007.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

There's actually a few more recordings of Smetana's Festive Symphony. Apart from Sejna and Zagrosek there's also recordings by Kuchar, Ang, Ivanovic, Svarovsky and Valek. I like this piece too and have the Ang recording on Naxos but I do find it overlong. Tbh, I haven't played it for a few years so maybe I should play it again soon.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I've enjoyed this music a lot, and part of the Scherzo became an earworm that even 30 years after first hearing the work still finds its way into active thought. Like so much other excellent music that is in the shadows, the chances of any major orchestra taking it up is nil. And it's too difficult for amateurs. I'm thankful that there are recordings to choose from.


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## Hydrarchos (Mar 19, 2017)

superhorn said:


> I would be delighted if the music director of one of our great US orchestras would program it with his or her orchestra, but this might be problematic , because the symphony makes prominent use of the anthem of the Austro Hungarian empire , whose theme was appropriated by the Nazis as "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles ".


This is not entirely accurate. The _Deutschlandlied_ was introduced as the German Empire's anthem after the fail of the Kaiserreich in 1918, although it had been popular before. While the melody is adopted from the Austrian anthem (and, by proxy, Haydn), the text was already written in 1841 by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, including the "Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles". In fact, that stanza is officially still part of the German anthem - it's just never sung. Instead, the third stanza ("Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland!") is used.

The Nazis didn't change the _Deutschlandlied_ - however, they appended the NSDAP Hymn, the _Horst Wessel Lied_, as a kind of "second anthem". While the HWL was never the _official_ German anthem, it was generally played immediately after the _Deutschlandlied_ on official occasions during the Nazi years.*

Having said that, the presence of the same melody as the one in the German anthem undoubtedly contributed to the neglect of Smetana's symphony. I've even heard a version that, through some rythmic juggling, tries to turn it into a different melody altogether.

Fun fact: the text and music of the _Deutschlandlied_ and the old anthem of the German Democratic Republic (_Auferstanden aus Ruinen_) are large interchangeable. We played some practical jokes with that as students.

* Unless you want to get involved in some pretty sketchy comment sections, don't look up the _HWL_ on Youtube.


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