Smatan, Dvorak Ma Vlast - Vltava (Vaclav Talich live 1939)

Ma Vlast - Vltava - Vaclav Talich Live 1939 Prag (Smetana, Dvorak)

[houseboat]

I listened to this just once in 1961 and I have never forgotten it.
There were 10 records in the original.
If there is any one out there who has any of the others please let us hear them!!!
--Nikolai

[maggiepate]

Since I am updating a Talich discography and because there were some questions here about the speed and timing of this purported 1939 Moldau, I have sought out copies of the five extant Talich performances. Here are the dates and timings:
1929 (Koch: 12:15; & Talich Special Edition 17: 12:17)
1939 (Supraphon "live": 11:58)
1940 (Electrola - the stand-alone recording, not part of a set: DB 7681-82: 11:34)
1940 (mislabeled 1941) (Biddulph WHL 049: 11:31)
1954 (Andromedia & many other releases: 11:46)
Based on these data, the speed is clearly incorrect for this YouTube dub. In addition, the label shown in the photo is certainly not of the 1939 "live" version published for the first time in 2011 (and available elsewhere on YouTube, correctly pitched). I have copies of all these, including the Electrola (and its filler, from Suk's Fairy Tale Suite). When I learn how to upload things here, I will do my best to put these 78s online.

[Bernolak]

This is not played at the wrong speed. It is a deliberate political statement regarding the British-approved Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia, and its radical slowness is tremendously effective if you open your mind to it.
Lugubrious, yes -- that's intentional. It's an intense lament for a betrayed nation.
It's one of the greatest musical performances ever recorded.

Nikolai Houseboat -- I believe that Supraphon has reissued the entire 1939 Ma Vlast cycle recently.

[maggiepate]

Thanks for this. Can you tell us if it might actually be the stand-alone Moldau that was issued on Electrola DB 7681/2 or if it stems from one of the complete recordings of Ma Vlast? (The picture is just far enough out of focus that I cannot read the numbers.) IF it is the 1940 Electrola recording, and if you have the 78s, can/will you put the filler online, too? (That would be the Polka from Suk's Fairy Tale Suite.) And if you have that, do you also have the complete Fairy Tale Suite, also from 1940, issued on Czech HMV DB 5301/4? If we could have these things online, then Talich fans could hear ALL the older items that have not yet been reissued in any more modern format.

[bil]

This is not playing at the correct speed, making everything lugubrious and unmusical to the extreme; please fix it!!!