A State of War Exists: Reporters in The Line of Fire

The Moody Blues' resumed work together after a four-year hiatus and delivered Octave in 1978, which quickly became a hit but has also proved to be a very problematic album. Picking up where he left off on Seventh Sojourn, bassist/singer John Lodge generated a hit single (and also a solid album opener) with the surprisingly edgy (for this band) rocker "Steppin' in a Slide Zone." And Justin Hayward's "Had to Fall in Love," "Driftwood," and "The Day We Meet Again" – the latter their best album closer since "Watching and Waiting" – are also up to the standard one would wish for (and a bit of a surprise, coming in the wake of two major solo projects that should have depleted his song bag). Additionally, Graeme Edge's "I'll Be Level with You" gives the album some harder rocking moments, but that's not the real reason for buying Moody Blues records; rather, it's the sweep, the overall body of music and vision, psychedelic and romantic, punched up with some solid rock moments, and it's this larger arc of the music that is missing here.

Conductor Vaclav Smetácek may not be as well known as his contemporaries Rafael Kubelik or Vaclav Neumann, but he was one of the most conspicuous influential Czech musicians of the twentieth century. Born in Brno, Smetácek was an oboe player and founded the Prague Wind Quintet in 1928 and maintained his membership in that renowned chamber group until his retirement in 1955. His conducting career began in radio in 1933, leading what would become the Prague Symphony Orchestra in a number of radio concerts and in the making of soundtracks for motion pictures. In 1942, the Prague Radio Symphony moved into the position of being a full-fledged civic orchestra, and Smetácek was named its first conductor; he held onto this position until 1972. Afterward, he frequently appeared as a guest conductor until shortly before his death at age 79 in 1986. Smetácek was a very prolific recording artist and an expert in Czech music of all kinds, but he also recorded Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and many others, as well, most of it very skillfully and all of it for the Czech state labels Supraphon and Panton.