Smetana Reborn - "My Country" for Piano
Matyáš Novák - piano
Program:
Bedřich Smetana / Jindřich Kàan of Albest: My Country
Vyšehrad
Vltava
Šárka
intermission
From the Meadows and Groves of Bohemia
Tábor
Blaník
In 2026, we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Jindřich Kàan of Albest (1852–1926), a versatile musician whose legacy has been somewhat obscured by the passage of time. Piano transcriptions of works by other composers occupy a significant place in Kàan’s oeuvre. Among these, his transcription of Smetana’s cycle *My Homeland* for solo piano stands out. While Smetana’s arrangement for four-hand piano is notoriously well-known and frequently performed, the opposite is true of Kàan’s transcription for two hands. Musically, it is a very successful piece, albeit one that is extremely demanding both technically and expressively. Kàan’s arrangement is comparable to Franz Liszt’s finest transcriptions; in some places, it even surpasses them.
