This passionate and dramatic piece has such a bloodthirsty and (in the present century) fashionable programme that it is surprising it is not played more often. The furious maiden Šarka vows vengeance against the entire male sex for the infidelity of her lover, and she and her followers end up slaughtering a whole band of men in the forest. The momentum of the music is relentless, the furious conclusion breathless. Unfortunately Šarka has suffered from the fact that all editions available in the West until 2018 have presented only the most wildly corrupt texts, the cause being that Smetana had no control over the publication of the orchestral score and parts, which only appeared after his death in 1884. Many details of articulation and dynamics are wrong, and the publishers were even presumptuous enough to rewrite the Vc2 part.

sources

A  Autograph full score (1875), in the Bedřich Smetana Museum, Prague

P  First edition parts, published by Urbanek in 1888, hence not (of itself) authentic; yet it contains many readings that differ from E, and the likelihood is that it derived from early performance parts, which were very much authentic. The Vc2 copy is entirely separate from Vc 1

E  First edition score, published by Urbanek in 1890; E has many errors, where P was correct

EE  Miniature score, published by Eulenburg in 1914

None of these has any rehearsal letters or bar numbers.

Ua  Urtext edition full score published by Orbis, Prague in 1950; for general comments on this edition see Vltava above

Ub  Urtext edition full score, edited with full Critical Commentary (in Czech only) by František Bartoš, Josef Plavec and Karel Šolc, and published by Artia in 1966. Again see Vltava above, but for Šarka there are no rehearsal letters (since none are authentic)