Bella's Symphonic Poem Fate & the Ideal

[Mark Thomas]

BBC Radio 3 are broadcasting the symphonic poem Fate & the Ideal by the Czech  Jan Levoslav Bella (1843-1936) at 6:40 AM British time on Monday 5 October. It appears to be a substantial piece lasting around 18 minutes. Although I haven't yet heard any of his orchestral music, Bella's String Quintet, three Quartets and some piano music were available on Marco Polo and thoroughly enjoyable they are too.

The BBC also broadcast his Solemn Overture earlier this week and my apologies for forgetting to post about that.

[JollyRoger]

BBC Radio 3 are broadcasting the symphonic poem Fate & the Ideal by the Czech  Jan Levoslav Bella (1843-1936) at 6:40 AM British time on Monday 5 October. It appears to be a substantial piece lasting around 18 minutes. Although I haven't yet heard any of his orchestral music, Bella's String Quintet, three Quartets and some piano music were available on Marco Polo and thoroughly enjoyable they are too.

The BBC also broadcast his Solemn Overture earlier this week and my apologies for forgetting to post about that.

Fate & the Ideal  is here if you want to hear it..
http://youtu.be/k7FgyPW0fWA

[Mykulh]

This work was once available on a 2 LP set of Bella's music on Opus 9110 1201- 2., issued in the early 1980s.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'm very glad to note this resurgence of interest in Bella (though perhaps 'resurgence' is far too strong a word given a couple of BBC broadcasts?)

Like Mark, I know only those Marco Polo CDs of the 3 Quartets and the Quintet (I wonder if he composed more quartets?). I thought them fine and enjoyable works. Perhaps the recordings themselves fall short of, say, Hyperion standards - but that's an unimportant niggle. What I did like are the performances by the Moyzes Quartet - not too polished or refined, but rather leaning towards the slightly 'gutsy' and impulsive, and entirely right for this music.

I don't know any of the orchestral music, but it is good that it is being performed and broadcast. The trouble of course is that if music of this sort is not held before the public then it eventually slips entirely off the radar. And then in a 100 or so year's time our great grandchildren, they themselves having become crusty oldies, write excitely on a kind of revamped UC forum 'Hey, anyone heard of a long forgotten Slovakian composer called 'Bella'? Not a fate I'd wish on any composer.

[Mark Thomas]

A radio broadcast of Fate and the Ideal is still available from our Downloads archive here.

[Gauk]

Does anyone have a worklist for Bella? I too have only ever heard his chamber music (just downloaded from Mark's link, will listent to that soon).

[eschiss1]

Sort of - see this thread.

[Gauk]

Rather more at home in vocal music, I see.

[Balapoel]

Sort of - see this thread.

Hmm. Not much of a 'sort of' as a 'for real' catalog.

[eschiss1]

Well, my standards of a for-real catalog comes from someone who's had access to the composer's surviving manuscripts, journals, etc. and built their catalog from - etc. That may be a bit much to hope for in this case... (how many surviving manuscripts are there? -- also etc.) (Also, btw, "unknown op. 10011" - was he that prolific? I had no idea... )

[Balapoel]

Well, by those standard, 99% of the catalogs out there (except dissertations, monographs, etc.) are not for-real catalogs.  Regarding 10011 - an obvious slip of the key. In any event, it did what was intended, which was to give an overview of the works by this specific composer...

[eschiss1]

erm.. not so obvious that I know, even now, what you meant by it.

[Balapoel]

check the keyboard [0 and -] are situated adjacent to each other. In context, it is clear...

Unknown Opp: 1, 4, 10011, 13-19, 22-24

Unknown Opp: 1, 4, 10-11, 13-19, 22-24