The Friday after Thanksgiving, my dad and I went to a matinee at Symphony Hall to hear the BSO perform Smetana's Overture to The Bartered Bride and Ma Vlast, his symphonic work of six tone poems. As a patriotic composer, Smetana is often overshadowed by his Czech countryman Dvorak who also made ample use of native folk tunes. James Levine is a "complete, unabashed Smetana nut," according to his program notes, and since I've never actually heard Ma Vlast performed, I was anxious to hear his usual unbridled enthusiasm in full force.
Perhaps it was all the 20th Century stuff I've been listening to in conjunction with reading The Rest is Noise, but Smetana's overwrought string work and alternating dominant/tonics sounded more like movie music to me rather than the "masterpiece" Levine claims it is. Not that that is a bad thing: after too much Stravinsky and Mahler, some good ole symphonic storytelling was an effective palette cleanser! I left the concert feeling ready to dive head first back into the Russian and German totalitarianism of the 1940s.
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