Like so many German stage directors working today, Nikolaus Harnoncourt does nothing without a “concept”. Sometimes these work and yield fascinating insights into music we thought that we knew; sometimes they don’t and the result is just plain weird. Happily this performance belongs to the former category, and we can be very grateful that RCA rescued it from discographic oblivion (actually, it was pressed by Teldec, then all copies were destroyed when that label cancelled Harnoncourt’s “lifetime” contract; some promos of that earlier pressing survive). If you thought you knew Ma Vlast, you’re in for a shock. Still, the most interesting thing about Harnoncourt’s view is that many of his insights come simply from following the score as Smetana wrote it, even if the results come up sounding about as “un-Czech” as humanly possible.
This is very evident at the outset, where Harnoncourt’s unusual attention to dynamics produces a harp duo of gentle sadness rather than the heroic strumming we get from most “authentic” Czech performances. Sadness and nostalgia figure prominently in Harnoncourt’s view of the work, and rightly so: with the exception of the two “nature” pieces, much of this music evokes, however heroically, scenes describing battle, betrayal, death, and misfortune. Vysehrad fortress rises slowly from the depths of the orchestra in an impressionistic manner that might have inspired Debussy’s Engulfed Cathedral. Vltava (The Moldau) opens just as gently, its principal theme wistfully meandering rather than purposefully surging forward, but each of its subsequent episodes is superbly characterized, with the central nocturne particularly exquisite.
Sarka also opens slowly, but with the utmost violence and savagery, a truly furious musical fist-shaking. Perhaps the most remarkable performance of all, From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields, features string fugatos of such gossamer lightness, with the dynamics between piano and pianissimo so well differentiated, that the music comes to sound like the first fugue from the finale of Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony. What a strange piece of writing this is, and how Harnoncourt positively revels in its weirdness!
Harnoncourt also finds much more contrast than usual in Tabor and Blaník, with huge differences of tempo and dynamics in the former, and an exquisitely shaped central episode in the latter leading to a resplendent, effortlessly grand culmination that never once seems strained or excessively long. Few performances manage to make the music sound ever more urgent as it progresses, but Harnoncourt clearly sees the work as an integrated whole rather than as a series of independent episodes. The unusual sadness, nostalgia, and deliberation of the early tone poems finds its turbulent culmination on the battlefields of Tabor and Blaník, and when the darkness finally yields to the light the effect is truly cathartic.
Throughout, the Vienna Philharmonic plays magnificently, the orchestra’s heavier and darker sonority (at least compared to the Czech Philharmonic) perfectly complementing Harnoncourt’s sober vision of the work. Excellent “live” sonics add up to a result that triumphantly vindicates not just Harnoncourt’s “concept” but the greatness and universality of Smetana’s heroic vision. It’s worth noting that all of the best performances of Ma Vlast see the work as more than a cute series of Czech postcards, but rather as “uncomfortable” music about important life and death issues. We certainly know that the piece meant as much to such great Czech artists as Ancerl and Kubelik, and I have little doubt that they would salute Harnoncourt as well for finding a new and valid way of reminding us of this fact. Don’t miss it! [9/27/2003]
