Tuesday's Music and Men

Monday was a seemingly endless day that sallied into the night leaving me all tuckered out by the time I returned home this morning.  So I took a nap, a long nap as it turns out.   I guess I needed the rest.  However that does not mean I get to skip a day just to be lazy.  I do have some great music and gorgeous guys lined up for you, so lets get to it.  

Peter van de Graaf, the Music Through The Night host on WRR was featuring Czech composers all program long.  I have also been hearing excerpts from Bedrich Smetana's masterpiece 'Ma Vlast' (My Homeland) on Venice Classic Radio a lot lately.  Therefore you are getting a goodly dose of Bedrich Smetana today.  Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride; for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Homeland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land; and for his First String Quartet, From My Life.  Posted down below is the Eterna recording of the complete 'Ma Vlast' cycle.  Recorded on 16th October 1967 in the Heilandskirche, Leipzig, it was first released in 1968.  This version is taken from the Eterna double LP 8 25 931-932 from 1973.  The performance is by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of  Václav Neumann.  Over on my tumblr, the Smetana Quartet performs his famous String Quartet Number 1 in E Minor "From My Life".  

Then as it is Tuesday, it must be time for some smoldering sexiness chosen from among my many collections for this edition of Random Hotness posted down below.  Then over on my tumblr, your Hottie of the Day! invites you for 'A Walk in the Park'.  Thanks for hanging around 'til I got here.  See  you again soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!