(++++) MIXED AND MATCHED

Smetana: Orchestral Works; String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2; Piano Trio; Piano Music; “The Bartered Bride” (complete). Brilliant Classics. $32.99 (8 CDs).

     Some compendia are more of a hodgepodge than others. This one, filled with recordings made over a period of more than half a century, is a real mishmash. Yet it is a very worthwhile patchwork, because Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), although not a “one-hit wonder” of a composer, is more or less a two-hit one – and should not be. The single piece for which he is best known is Vltava, the second tone poem in his sprawling six-piece Má Vlast cycle about his homeland. Vltava, also called by its German name, Die Moldau, is one Smetana work that is endlessly popular – as is Má Vlast as a whole. If that material counts as “one hit” for the composer, then No. 2 is his opera, The Bartered Bride, which is better known by its English title or its German one (Der Verkaufte Braut) than by its original: Prodaná nevěsta, which actually means “the sold bride,” so the German translation is more accurate than the alliterative English one. The concert pieces extracted from the opera – its sparkling overture plus a polka, furiant, and Dance of the Comedians – are collectively Smetana’s second “big hit.”

     This eight-CD Brilliant Classics collection of Smetana’s music includes all the “hit” material by the composer and, equally of interest if admittedly not quite at the level of Smetana’s best-known pieces, a good number of his works that are rarely (sometimes very rarely) performed. All the renditions, of whatever vintage, have much to recommend them, even if not all are necessarily ideal versions of the music. And the extensive nature of the collection makes it a must-have for anyone intrigued by the works of Smetana beyond the best-known ones. The collection does overstate its case somewhat, though, in claiming to offer Smetana’s complete orchestral works: it includes most but scarcely all of them. What it does include is well worth hearing, though. Má Vlast is a 2007 recording by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Theodore Kuchar. It is a weighty performance with considerable martial heft, despite an orchestra that sounds a touch harsh from time to time, especially in the brass. Intensity is what rules here, with relatively short shrift given to contrasting more-lyrical sections, such as the one in Šárka and the entirety of From Bohemia’s Meadows and Forests, which is the weakest performance among the six. The overall impression of the cycle is nevertheless a very positive one.

     The same forces provide two additional discs of Smetana’s orchestral music, also in recordings dating to 2007. One of those CDs features Smetana’s three “Swedish” tone poems (intended to be heard first in that nation, although that did not happen): Wallenstein’s Camp, Hakon Jarl, and Richard III. That disc also features the four well-known Bartered Bride excerpts plus three genuine rarities: Doktor Faust (an overture to a puppet play), The Peasant Woman (a polka), and To Our Girls (another polka: Smetana was fond of this dance form). The remaining CD of orchestral works includes the Festive Symphony (Smetana’s only work in symphonic form: an occasional piece that the composer actually called Triumphal Symphony and that he wrote to commemorate the wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph) plus two works called Festive Overture, one in C and a longer and more-ebullient one in D. Also on this disc are additional rarely heard pieces: Prague Carnival (an Introduction and Polonaise), March of the National Guard, and Shakespeare Festival March. There is no great music here, but there is plenty of solid, well-orchestrated and tuneful material, showing just how skilled Smetana was at large-scale composition even several decades before Má Vlast.

     The fourth CD in this boxed set features a more-modest scale and an aspect of composition in which Smetana is not at all well-known: chamber music. His two string quartets are played by the Stamitz Quartet in a recording dating back to 1990; his Piano Trio is offered by the Joachim Trio in a 1995 performance. All three works are in minor keys – an indication of the seriousness with which Smetana approached this element of his compositional creativity. The lengthier String Quartet No. 1 (in E minor) is called “From My Life,” but the more-compressed String Quartet No. 2 (in D minor) has a stronger sense of autobiography, while the G minor Piano Trio is pervaded by darkness. This disc contrasts strongly with the next, which features 33 pieces of salon-style piano music played by Roberto Plano in a 2013 recording. Smetana wrote these light, comparatively easy works essentially to bring in the money he needed to pursue his more-heartfelt musical aspirations, so their lack of depth is scarcely a surprise. They are uniformly well-made, though, and a few, such as the intriguingly titled “It Boils and It Roars,” come across as more than trifles. This fifth CD is followed by another one of piano music: it includes Smetana’s complete Czech dances for piano, played by Antonin Kubalek in a recording dating to 1988. There are two books of these dances. The first includes four pieces, all polkas. The second has 10 works, several of which are redolent of Czech folk music and are interesting in their own right: Slepicka (“Hen”), Medved (“Bear”), Obkrocák (“Step”), and Skocná (“Jump”).

     The final two discs of this extensive collection are even more imbued with the Czech spirit of Smetana’s time, since they comprise a complete performance of The Bartered Bride. It is a well-sung, very nicely played and well-paced performance featuring Chor der Staatsoper Dresden and Staatskapelle Dresden under Otmar Suitner. And although the lead soprano, Annelies Burmeister, is not always as expressive as might be desired, the voices in general are very fine – with one, that of Theo Adam in the role of marriage broker Kezal, being outstanding. However, it is hard to recommend this particular performance of the opera unreservedly, because the work is given in German and the recording dates all the way back to 1962. The performance’s age is actually not a major negative: the recording is fine, clearly sung and instrumentally effective, and the score’s many high points come through very well. Furthermore, The Bartered Bride was for many years most commonly given in German translation rather than the original Czech – a language difficult for non-native speakers to learn and sing. The many musical pleasures of The Bartered Bride overcome both the age of the recording and the translated libretto, but given Smetana’s importance for the development of a national (and nationalistic) Czech musical idiom, it would certainly have been better if a Czech version of the opera had been offered here.

     The reality, though, is that Brilliant Classics had to package what was already in its catalogue for this re-release, and that means that compromises had to be made. A big one is the absence of extended liner notes and of a libretto for The Bartered Bride – there is not even a summary of the opera’s action, although that can be readily found online and the libretto (in one German version or another) can also be tracked down with a modicum of effort. The very thin booklet provided with this boxed set actually states that “extensive notes and sung texts” are available at BrilliantClassics.com, but this does not appear to be the case. Interested listeners will, however, find it worthwhile to do some online research and learn more about all the music here – that will be time quite well spent, as will the time spent listening to this nearly 10-hour presentation of a very extensive (if not really complete) survey of the music of a first-rate composer whose works certainly deserve exploration that goes beyond the small number of them with which audiences are most likely to be familiar.