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Bedrich Smetana: Ma vlast - Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, conductor Petr Popelka on LP

An exceptional, highly acclaimed performance of Ma vlast, now on vinyl

In the span of only a few years, Petr Popelka has ascended swiftly to

the forefront of the international conducting elite. Popelka serves as

the chief conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and of

the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and he appears as a guest with top

European and American orchestras and at opera theatres around the world.

He definitely sees Smetana not merely as a "compulsory Czech classic",

but instead as a great love and an opportunity for artistic discovery. "His

masterpiece Ma vlast should be done a bit like an opera, like a grand

narrative... It is absolutely unique in the history of music, as a cycle of tone

poems with the composer's native land as it's theme, and above all, there

is no work that has ever been written with greater love." The album was

released in 2024 on CD (and in the format Dolby Atmos as well, incidentally)

to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bedrich Smetana's birth. Through

a combination of musicality and uncompromising attention to details,

the conductor and orchestra were able to give an extraordinarily finely

crafted performance. This is not just one more of the countless recordings

of Ma vlast, as is shown by enthusiastic reviews from around the world:

in February 2025, the magazine Gramophone honoured the album as

the Editor's Choice, and the December issue of the French magazine

Diapason announced it as the winner of the Diapason d'Or de l'Annee in

the symphonic music category. The April 2026 release of this vinyl edition

of Ma vlast commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Prague Radio

Symphony Orchestra's founding.