Folk-Influenced Czech Music By Hilmar, Malát, Smetana and Ostrčil

In common with many late 19th century and early 20th century composers, Bedřich Smetana was inspired by the indigenous Czech music he heard when he was young - as was his successor, the even more renowned Antonín Dvořák.

In today's post he hear the music of a Czech composer, František Hilmar, whose published dance music may have influenced Smetana and Dvořák. We also hear some of Smetana's earliest music, as well as folk-inflected compositions by Jan Malát and by Otakar Ostrčil, a student of Dvořák's contemporary Zdenek Fibich.

These come from two early Supraphon LPs, the second of which has an incongruous full-up of Gounod's Faust ballet music, included here for the sake of completeness.

František Hilmar - Czech Polkas

František Hilmar

František Hilmar (1803-81), who is sometimes called the "Father of the Polka," was a teacher who also composed, making use of the dance tunes that were then becoming popular, especially the polka. He reputedly was the author of the first published polka, dating from 1837. Hilmar's works are said to have influenced Smetana in his younger years, as well as Dvořák. The influence will be immediately clear, I believe.

Hilmar's most famous composition was the "Esmeralda Polka," named in honor of the central character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which had been published in 1831. (A more euphonious title than the "Quasimodo Polka," I suppose.) "Esmeralda" leads off this selection of six Hilmar polkas. The recordings, dating from 1950, are by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under Alois Klíma.

Jan Malát - Slavonic Maidens

Jan Malát

Jan Malát (1843-1915), a younger contemporary of Smetana, was a composer and teacher who collected and edited folk songs. In "Slavonic Maidens," he characterizes Slovak, Czech, Polish and Bulgarian girls, making use of traditional tunes.

The 1950 recordings come from Václav Smetácek and the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK (Film-Opera-Koncert).

Both the Hilmar and Malát works are tuneful pieces that will be enjoyed by anyone who likes Smetana's Bartered Bride dances. The performances are idiomatic and the 70-year-old sound is true to life. These come from a 10-inch Supraphon LP.

Bedřich Smetana - Wedding Scenes

Bedřich Smetana

Now on to a 12-inch Supraphon album combining works by Smetana, Ostrčil and Gounod.

"Wedding Scenes" is a very early, folk-inspired composition by Bedřich Smetana (1824-84), dating from his high school years. Even so, it is characteristic enough of his later output that he utilized some of the motifs in his music for The Bartered Bride.

Smetana wrote the work for piano; this version has been orchestrated by Josef Hüttl. The 1951 performance is by the Film Symphony Orchestra, directed by Otakar Pařik. The sessions were in the Rudolfinum.

Otakar Ostrčil - Peasant Festival

Otakar Ostrčil

As with the Smetana work, the "Peasant Festival" by Otakar Ostrčil (1879-1935) is an early work, his Op. 1. Unlike "Wedding Scenes," however, it is somewhat uncharacteristic of Ostrčil's major, late-Romantic compositions to come. As the name implies, "Peasant Festival" derives its themes from folk and popular music.

The Ostrčil recording is also by the Film Symphony Orchestra, here conducted by Zbynek Vostrák. I don't have a date for the recording but it was before 1955, when the conductor passed away.

The Smetana and Ostrčil works are most affectionately and effectively done, and the sound is well-balanced.

Charles Gounod - Ballet Music for Faust

Charles Gounod

In this program of folk-influenced music by Czech composers, a suite by the Frenchman Charles Gounod (1818-93) may seem to be an odd disk mate. But consider that it is from the same period (written in 1869) and is dance music. Also, it is tuneful, direct, and was a great hit with the Parisians and for the Paris Opera. Gounod's score for his opera Faust was composed in 1859 and did not have a dance interlude until the Opera took the production on 10 years later. Ballets were de rigueur at the Paris Opera of the time.

The straightforward performance is led by Václav Smetácek, conducting the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, which does sound a little thin here. The 1953 recording comes from Prague's Domovina Studio.

If you want to compare this recording of the Faust music to another, I shared the George Weldon version last year.

Lambert's 'Sleeping Beauty' Recordings, Plus Weldon's 'Faust' Ballet Music

1946 Covent Garden Sleeping Beauty production - the Prologue

My recent post of an LP containing Nicolai Malko's recording of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's score for the Sleeping Beauty ballet set off a lengthy discussion: was it really Malko or did the record company mistakenly include Constant Lambert's 1939 Sadler's Wells recordings?

It turns out it really was Malko. I had always doubted the doubters, mainly because I was familiar with Lambert's Sleeping Beauty recordings, and they were not the same as what RCA had presented as Malko's rendition. So today I come full circle by presenting the Lambert recordings.

The remarkable Lambert, the long-time music director for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, actually made two sets of excerpts from the ballet, one in conjunction with a 1938 staging, and one in 1946. The latter was recorded in association with a new production by Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton in the troupe's new Covent Garden home, with costumes by Oliver Messel. As she did in 1938, Margot Fonteyn danced Princess Aurora, with Robert Helpmann as both Prince Florimund and Carabosse.

Margot Fonteyn as Princess Aurora in the Rose Adagio

Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann in the Awakening Scene

Robert Helpmann as Carabosse

Fortunately - and unusually - there is a good visual record of the 1946 staging in the form of color photographs taken by Frank Sharman during performances. The images seen here are from his collection, as made available on the Covent Garden website. Several others are in the download, along with a few black-and-white images taken by Merlyn Severn and published in his book Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, a record of the 1946 season.

In the February 1939 session for HMV, Lambert assayed some of the most familiar excerpts from the score - the Introduction, the Waltz, the Rose Adagio, Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat, and the Finale. In 1946, he avoided these items, taking up the Dance of the Maids of Honor and Pages, the Aurora Variation, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and a few other dances.

Robert Helpmann and Constant Lambert

Lambert's work is, as usual, beautifully done. Both orchestras are up to the task, although neither has much weight of tone, as far as one can tell from the 70- and 80-year-old recordings, which nonetheless are relatively good for the period. As you might expect, the sound from 1946 is better than from 1939.

The 1939 recordings are taken from lossless needle-drops found on Internet Archive, as refurbished by me. The 1946 excerpts come from an early 50's U.S. Columbia LP in my collection that also included ballet music from Gounod's opera Faust, discussed below.

Weldon Conducts Ballet Music from Gounod's Faust

George Weldon by
Walter Stoneman, 1949

George Weldon (1908-63) was a talented English conductor who was the director of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1946, when these recordings were taken down. He was to stay there only until 1950, when he was dismissed or resigned (accounts differ), supposedly because he was having an affair with choir director Ruth Gipps, a very good composer whose music has lately been revived. Orchestras could be strict about such things back then - blog favorite Efrem Kurtz was reportedly shown the stage door by the Houston Symphony because of a liaison with principal flute Elaine Shaffer, later a well-known soloist.

Weldon made quite a number of records for EMI during his brief life - including a semi-complete version of Sleeping Beauty in 1956. I believe he was associated with the Sadler's Wells Ballet at that time, although the recording was with the Philharmonia. Sadler's Wells music director Robert Irving had recorded a competing version of the ballet the year before, which has appeared on this blog. EMI seemed to make the score a specialty - and so does Big 10-Inch Record, it appears.

The premiere of Gounod's Faust had been in 1859; Gounod added the dance music to Act 5 a decade later at the request of the Paris Opera, where ballets were expected as part of the spectacle.

Weldon secures a lively performance from the underpowered Birmingham band, which had been been decimated during the war. The sound - as with the rest of these items - is well-balanced and pleasing without any high-fidelity pretensions.