Bamberg Symphony / Albrecht Mayer / Jakub Hrůša

There are many composers who have left their native country a memorial in music, but it seems unlikely that any other work in music history is such a strong synonym for homeland and identity as Smetana’s »Má vlast« (My Homeland). The six-part cycle with its world-famous tone poem »The Moldau« has similar status for the Czech people to a national anthem, and is played every year to mark the opening of the Prague Spring on the anniversary of the composer’s death. The Bamberg Symphony, founded in 1946 by former members of the Prague German Philharmonic Orchestra and known for its refined music-making, places the cycle at the end of a programme that master oboist Albrecht Meyer opens with two solo concertos.