Philip Jongeneel wrote:

>To me this borders on the outrageous.  First of all, Ma Vlast is a
>symphonic cycle, and should be performed without intermission...as should
>any symphony or similar work.
>
>Where do you place the intermission?

Philip's point of view is well taken.  However, I could swear that I heard
a radio broadcast some years ago where Rafael Kubelik (someone mildly
familiar with Ma Vlast:-) did exactly that--take an intermission halfway
through the cycle; between "Sarka" and "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields".

>Would the Philadelphia Orchestra program Beethoven's Fifth, for instance,
>as the only work for a concert and place an intermission between the second
>and thirds movements (better yet beween the third and fourth movements...)?

Well, maybe not now, and not for that work.  But interrupting the movements
of a symphony to include other works was something that had precedent
before Beethoven's time, at the very least, not to mention encores of a
particular movement that caught the audience's fancy--see some of the
accounts of London premieres of Haydn's late symphonies.

Bill H.