Six favourite works by Czech/Slovak composers.

[vandermolen]

Novak: The Storm
Kalabis: Sinfonia Pacis (No.2)
Suk: Asrael Symphony
Kabelac: Mystery of Time
Martinu: Symphony 4
Moyzes: Symphony 7

[Brian]

Oh gosh this is an impossible poll. Impossipoll.

Janacek - Glagolitic Mass
Janacek - Sinfonietta
Dvorak - Symphony No 8
Dvorak - Te Deum
Dvorak - String Quartet Op 106
Martinu - Symphony No 4

"Next nine"

Martinu - Nonet
Martinu - Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra
Janacek - Sonata 1.X.1905
Janacek (arr. Honeck & Ille) - suite from Jenufa
Smetana - Ma Vlast
Kalliwoda - Symphony No 5
Haas - String Quartet No 2
Klein - String trio / partita
Dvorak - The Wild Dove

EDIT: Czech composers are very much my favorite nationality, so this is tough for me. I could list 20 more.

[Sergeant Rock]

Dvořák Slavonic Dances
Dvořák Symphony No.7 D minor
Dvořák Symphony No.8 G major
Dvořák Otello Overture
Smetana Má vlast
Janáček Sinfonietta

[Mirror Image]

Czech composers don't really fall under my radar too often, but Janacek, Martinu, and Suk are favorites. Here's my list:

Martinu: Nipponari
Martinu: Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani
Janacek: Sinfonietta
Janacek: Violin Sonata
Suk: A Summer's Tale

[vandermolen]

Oh gosh this is an impossible poll. Impossipoll.

Janacek - Glagolitic Mass
Janacek - Sinfonietta
Dvorak - Symphony No 8
Dvorak - Te Deum
Dvorak - String Quartet Op 106
Martinu - Symphony No 4

"Next nine"

Martinu - Nonet
Martinu - Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra
Janacek - Sonata 1.X.1905
Janacek (arr. Honeck & Ille) - suite from Jenufa
Smetana - Ma Vlast
Kalliwoda - Symphony No 5
Haas - String Quartet No 2
Klein - String trio / partita
Dvorak - The Wild Dove

EDIT: Czech composers are very much my favorite nationality, so this is tough for me. I could list 20 more.

I like the Janacek Glagolitic Mass also.

[Scion7]

Six, huh?  Odd number.  Actually, it's even, but ya know wut I meant . . . 

SMETANA-My Vlast (My Fatherland) - especially the water-sprite sequence
DVORAK-The Water Goblin, Op.107
JANACECK-Sinfonietta, Op.60 'Military'
DVORAK-Cello Concerto, Op.104
SMETANA-Overture to The Bartered Bride
MARTINU-Symphony No.6 Fantaisies symphoniques, H.343


. . . sure leaves out some great music by Dussek, Suk, Biber, Krommer, Druschetzky, etc.

[Rinaldo]

Kabeláč - Mystery of Time

https://www.youtube.com/v/5kxcD0mU9jo

Dvořák - American Suite (DAT SECOND ALLEGRO!)

https://www.youtube.com/v/vx7P69hzWV4

Smetana - Má vlast (Czech kids are taught about the Vltava part in schools and I remember how bored I was during that particular class.. years later, at the other side of the world, it moved me to tears)

https://www.youtube.com/v/sn2tlfH5hqU

Zelenka - Missa Votiva

https://www.youtube.com/v/ZboSjSW8VjU

Martinů - Symphony no. 4

https://www.youtube.com/v/ofciLQT2EmE

Petr Cígler - Entropic Symphony (a contemporary piece which I hope will get an official release one day, as it deserves a wider recognition)

N/A

[(poco) Sforzando]

I very much like the Janacek operas, which have gone unmentioned so far. That gives me a good 4-5 major works right there. Dvorak is a composer whom I often find irresistible despite the discursiveness of his structures. From the classic period, the symphony in D by Vorisek is a marvelous work by a composer who died young.

[Scion7]

I actually had to look that one up: digressing from subject to subject : ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from medieval Latin discursivus, from Latin discurs-, literally 'gone hastily to and fro'

Variety is the spice of compostition!   :-)

[(poco) Sforzando]

I actually had to look that one up: digressing from subject to subject : ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from medieval Latin discursivus, from Latin discurs-, literally 'gone hastily to and fro'

Variety is the spice of compostition!   :-)

Edward Cone, the fine Princeton musicologist, summed up my feelings towards Dvorak when he said the composer lacked the "single most valuable instinct a composer can have . . . . a feeling for punctuality: of getting to the right place at just the right time, neither early nor late, and above all of getting to the end at the right time. [In comparison to Mozart,] Dvorak, for all his merits, lacked [this instinct]: many of even his best compositions go on long after they should be over." I felt this even when young listening to the finales of the New World Symphony and the Cello Concerto. But on the other hand, there is in Dvorak something immensely attractive about his melodic sense, his use of the orchestra, and a musical personality that sounds utterly sincere, ingenuous, and generous.

One of my oddest concert-going experiences occurred in Berlin in 2002; the VPO was playing a Dvorak-Smetana program under Harnoncourt, and it seemed to me the musical content was unusually short. Turns out that Nikolaus had programmed one of the later tone-poems, and before it began he decided to lecture the audience for a good half-hour on every twist and turn of the story being illustrated by the music. The actual composition took less time than Harnoncourt's verbal gyrations; even so these late tone-poems seem to me among Dvorak's least successful works. (Richard Strauss, by contrast, used in his best tone poems -Till, Don Juan, T+V, Don Q- to create structures that were musically coherent at the same time they told his stories, and the later, longer, more discursive works like Heldenleben, ASZ, and Sym Dom fall apart precisely because they lack this sense of musical coherence.)

[North Star]

Janacek SQ2
Janacek Vixen
Suk About Mother
Martinu Nonet
Dvorak Cello Concerto
Zelenka Miserere ZWV 57

[vandermolen]

Janacek SQ2
Janacek Vixen
Suk About Mother
Martinu Nonet
Dvorak Cello Concerto
Zelenka Miserere ZWV 57

Very interesting choices. I only know the Dvorak Cello Concerto which I like very much.

[Brian]

The actual composition took less time than Harnoncourt's verbal gyrations; even so these late tone-poems seem to me among Dvorak's least successful works. (Richard Strauss, by contrast, used in his best tone poems -Till, Don Juan, T+V, Don Q- to create structures that were musically coherent at the same time they told his stories, and the later, longer, more discursive works like Heldenleben, ASZ, and Sym Dom fall apart precisely because they lack this sense of musical coherence.)

I think Harnoncourt's lecture backfired, not just because of the awkward, bizarre concert experience, but because it gives the wrong idea about some of the music. (My mother hates those programmatic descriptions, by the way. After we saw Strauss's T&V, she said, "Why did they have to tell us that that part means death or whatever? Why can't I use my imagination to create the story?") If you ever do give any of those tone poems another try, start with The Wild Dove - it's just an elaborate theme & variations; every episode, the theme is presented as a seemingly-different melody.

The most concise large-form Dvorak piece I know is the Te Deum. No wonder it made my list??

[Todd]

Janacek - Kat'a Kabanova
Janacek - Jenufa
Janacek - String Quartet 1
Janacek - String Quartet 2
Janacek - Taras Bulba
Janacek - Piano Sonata

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think Harnoncourt's lecture backfired, not just because of the awkward, bizarre concert experience, but because it gives the wrong idea about some of the music. (My mother hates those programmatic descriptions, by the way. After we saw Strauss's T&V, she said, "Why did they have to tell us that that part means death or whatever? Why can't I use my imagination to create the story?") If you ever do give any of those tone poems another try, start with The Wild Dove - it's just an elaborate theme & variations; every episode, the theme is presented as a seemingly-different melody.

The most concise large-form Dvorak piece I know is the Te Deum. No wonder it made my list??

To take your last point first, it seems to implicitly acknowledge the validity of Cone's argument. I don't know that one, but I have the Stabat Mater, and I even have the Requiem in score.

As far as programmatic descriptions go, that's perhaps a separate issue to the one I brought up. Programs are generally assigned by the composer, and once that's done, I'm not sure on what basis a listener can argue that they don't care for that program and want to construct one of their own. (E.g., I don't like La Mer as a program and want to call Debussy's suite La Forêt instead, and instead of seeing dawn over the morning sea, I want to see sunlight over the mountain forest!) Of course there is something arbitrary in any program; music cannot represent a windmill or a flock of sheep in the same way a painting can (though Strauss did a pretty good simulation).

[Scion7]

Edward Cone, the ... Princeton musicologist ...

How nice for him. Totally disagree.
Btw, has Cone made any significant music?   

[(poco) Sforzando]

How nice for him. Totally disagree.
Btw, has Cone made any significant music?   

One might ask the same of you. Actually he was also a pianist and composer in addition to being a musicologist. Your credentials?

[Brian]

To take your last point first, it seems to implicitly acknowledge the validity of Cone's argument. I don't know that one, but I have the Stabat Mater, and I even have the Requiem in score.

Oh, you gotta hear it. I think either it was written in the USA, or presented at Dvorak's first NYC concert as a greeting. It gets through the whole Te Deum text in a trim 18 minutes and it's the composer at his catchy, joyful best.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Oh, you gotta hear it. I think either it was written in the USA, or presented at Dvorak's first NYC concert as a greeting. It gets through the whole Te Deum text in a trim 18 minutes and it's the composer at his catchy, joyful best.

Which recording?

[Brian]

Which recording?

Difficult question - I believe the work's obscurity is because of its rarity on record, rather than vice versa. There is a Chandos recording with all-Russian forces who are simply too Russian; the singers in particular are distractly unidiomatic. Zdenek Macal recorded the piece with the New Jersey Symphony, enthusiastic but far from first-rate; Helmuth Rilling and the Bach Collegium Stuttgart is the recording I return to most, even if one can imagine a more "Czech" reading. I have not heard Vaclav Neumann on Supraphon, nor Robert Shaw on Telarc.

I've been fortunate to see it live twice (Tomas Netopil & Dallas Symphony, Neeme Jarvi & London Symphony).