Name: Karel Ancerl - My Country
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Who is Karel Ancerl? Only his music-making can give us the answer. Urbane, modern, uncomplicated and entirely self-possessed, Karel Ancerl makes an unsatisfactorily self-effacing interviewee... — Gramophone Magazine, July 2009 More…

Release Date: 30th Jun 2008
Catalogue No: SU70159
Label: Supraphon

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Smetana: Má Vlast

Opening concert of Prague Spring 1968
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Karel Ancerl

Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61

recorded in 1966
Henryk Szeryng (violin)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Karel Ancerl

Documentary: “Who Is Karel Ancerl?”

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Karel Ancerl

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In the year of the centenary of the birth of Karel Ancerl, one of the most distinguished conductors of the 20th century, this DVD is an invaluable and authentic document of magnificent artistic achievement and a turbulent life. The recording of the opening concert of Prague Spring 1968 captures Ancerl’s performance of Smetana’s My Country with the Czech Philharmonic which – over the 18 years he was at the helm – he managed to transform into one of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. Ancerl’s “harvest” of the fruit of many years of diligent work was in fact also the beginning of his leave-taking from his orchestra, as well as his homeland itself. At the time of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 the conductor found himself in Toronto. Save for a single guest appearance in Prague in 1969, he was never to return to his country. The second filmed concert shows Ancerl in action in 1966 with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the outstanding Polish violinist Henryk Szeryng performing Beethoven’s violin concerto. The 1968 documentary is a unique encounter with Karel Ancerl. This compact picture of his true personality is supplemented by a comprehensive booklet containing a plethora of fascinating and not generally known biographical information.

Reviews

July 2009

Who is Karel Ancerl? Only his music-making can give us the answer. Urbane, modern, uncomplicated and entirely self-possessed, Karel Ancerl makes an unsatisfactorily self-effacing interviewee for the same reasons that his recordings still compel attention.

Karel Ancerl - My Country

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