Search - Smetana: My Fatherland (Ma vlast) on DVD

A Very Mixed Bag

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 07/04/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"On the one hand we have one of the greatest of Czech conductors, Rafael Kubelik, at the height of his powers and conducting one of the great European orchestras, his beloved Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which he had been principal conductor for almost twenty years. On the other hand, we have murky visuals -- this film was made in 1984 -- filmed at the visually appealing Herkulessaal in Munich (but you've never know it because of the murk and because of the use of distractingly arty closeups of the musicians through most of the film) and the even murkier sound. I tried listening to this DVD on three different rigs and the sound was always nearly unacceptable, with congested sound and lack of realistic ambience. (I even wondered if my disc had a manufacturing defect.) This is a pity because one can tell that these are wonderful performances of the quintessential nationalistic Czech set of orchestral tone poems. A pity.

Scott Morrison"