Má vlast is Bedřich Smetana’s take on the history of the Czech Republic. We heard the complete Má vlast - all six movements. They are rarely played together and whilst two are well known, the others are less familiar.
Má vlast opens with harps and quickly begins the telling of Bohemia’s history and the importance of the Vitava river. Soon two flutes are high up at the river’s source, one a hot spring the other cold. And then there’s the grunting second bassoon and the legend of drunken soldiers poisoned before the massacre. Happier times follow with the clarinet and warm summer Bohemian days. The cellos are to the fore.
The heroics of Jan Hus and his Hussites, forerunners by a hundred years of Martin Luther, are celebrated in the hymn tune Ye are God’s Warriors, before defeat by Vatican armies. But by the end the Hussites are victorious.
Above the players of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was a tall and wide screen in three joined up sections, onto which digital pictures were beamed throughout the work. William Chandler’s much respected erudition in the pre-concert talk, with his two photochoreographer guests, went a long way to help me understand the concert. Peter Oundjian’s introduction was also a welcome and necessary précis. I like his bounce, others probably need time to get used to it.
James Westwater, the veteran American photochoreographer, had decided early in his career not to work in Hollywood and be presented with an almost finished film that needed music to be attached. Instead he works on music to which photography would be a helpful addition. In recent years he has been joined by his son-in-law, James Bardonnay. Commissioned jointly by RSNO and Toronto Symphony for Má vlast they went with their cameras to the Czech Republic for a month last June and back again for another month in October.
The photography was not directly related to the music being played - nothing was lost if one chose to watch the players instead. Just in the same way as the background music in a movie helps, but is not essential - the story’s the same. But the pictures of the Czech Republic were particularly attractive, but maybe sometimes veering toward a tourist board’s offering.
I wonder whether when Má vlast is played at the start of each year’s Prague Festival they would consider adding the photochoreography. That really would be interesting.
On my way out friends said the concert was a mistake, others said they might get used to the innovation - but not too often. I clearly enjoyed the evening more than those friends.
Event: Friday 22 March 2013 at 7.30pm