Smetana Vltava

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j8857i4ZTI

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Bedrich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Smetana" redirects here. For other uses, see Smetana (disambiguation).

Portrait of Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana (Czech pronunciation: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] ( listen); 2
March 1824,Litomyšl, Bohemia – 12 May 1884, Prague, Bohemia) 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 Fatherland") which
portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land,
and for his First String Quartet From My Life.
Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public
performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied
music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was
written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated.
After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he
set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write
large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was
twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.
In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged
Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the
musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech
opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in
Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague's
newProvisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same
year, Smetana became the theatre's principal conductor, but the years of
his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city's
musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive
ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a
distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative
work, and may have hastened the health breakdown which precipitated his
resignation from the theatre in 1874.
By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from
his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of
sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His
contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured,
but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum,
and his subsequent death. Smetana's reputation as the founding father of
Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have
raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors.
However, relatively few of Smetana's works are in the international
repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regardAntonín
Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer.
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Biography
o 1.1 Family background and childhood
o 1.2 Apprentice musician
 1.2.1 First steps
 1.2.2 Student and teacher
o 1.3 Early career
 1.3.1 Revolutionary
 1.3.2 Piano Institute
 1.3.3 Budding composer
 1.3.4 Private sorrows and professional disenchantment
o 1.4 Years of travel
 1.4.1 Gothenburg
 1.4.2 Bereavement, remarriage and return to Prague
o 1.5 National prominence
 1.5.1 Seeking recognition
 1.5.2 Opera maestro
 1.5.3 Opposition
o 1.6 Final decade
 1.6.1 Deafness
  1.6.2 Late flowering
o 1.7 Illness and death
• 2 Music
o 2.1 Piano works
o 2.2 Vocal and choral
o 2.3 Chamber
o 2.4 Orchestral
o 2.5 Opera
o 2.6 Reception
• 3 Character and reputation
• 4 Notes and references
• 5 Sources

• 6 External links

[edit]Biography

[edit]Family background and childhood

Bedřich Smetana was born on 2 March 1824, in Litomyšl, east
of Prague near the traditional border between Bohemia and Moravia, then
provinces of the Habsburg Empire. He was the third child, and first son, of
František Smetana and his third wife Barbora Lynková. František had
fathered eight children in two earlier marriages, five daughters surviving
infancy; he and Barbora had ten more children, of whom seven reached
adulthood.[1][2] At this time, under Habsburg rule, German was the official
language of Bohemia. František knew Czech, but for business and social
reasons rarely used it, and his children were ignorant of it until much later
in their lives.[3]
Count Waldstein's castle in Smetana's birthplace, Litomyšl, Bohemia

The Smetana family came from the Hradec Králové region of Bohemia.
František had initially learned the trade of a brewer, and had acquired
moderate wealth during the Napoleonic Wars by supplying clothing and
provisions to the French Army. He subsequently managed several
breweries before coming to Litomyšl in 1823 as brewer to Count
Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle dominates the town.[1][4]
The elder Smetana, although uneducated, had a natural gift for music and
was a competent violinist who played in a string quartet.[5] Bedřich was
introduced to music by his father and in October 1830, at the age of six,
gave his first public performance. At a concert held in Litomyšl's
Philosophical Academy he played a piano arrangement of Auber's overture
to La Muette de Portici, to a rapturous reception.[6][7] In 1831 the family
moved to Jindřichův Hradec in the south of Bohemia – the region where, a
generation later, Gustav Mahler grew up.[4][8] Here, Smetana attended the
local elementary school and later the gymnasium. He also studied violin
and piano, discovering the works of Mozart and Beethoven, and began
composing simple pieces of which one, a dance (Kvapiček, or "Little
Galop"), survives in sketch form.[8][9]
In 1835, František retired to a farm in the south-eastern region of Bohemia.
[9]
There being no suitable local school, Smetana was sent to the
gymnasium at Jihlava, where he was homesick and unable to study. He
then transferred to the Premonstratensian school at Německý Brod, where
he was happier and made good progress.[9] Among the friends he made
here was the future Czech revolutionary poet Karel Havlíček,[10] whose
departure for Prague in 1838 may have influenced Smetana's own desire
to experience life in the capital. The following year, with František's
approval, he enrolled at Prague's Academic Grammar School under Josef
Jungmann, a distinguished poet and linguist who was a leading figure in
the movement for Czech national revival.[11]
[edit]Apprentice musician
[edit]First steps
Smetana arrived in Prague in the autumn of 1839. Finding Jungmann's
school uncongenial (he was mocked by his classmates for his country
manners),[11] Smetana soon began missing classes. He attended concerts,
visited the opera, listened to military bands and joined an amateur string
quartet for whom he composed simple pieces.[11] After Liszt gave a series
of piano recitals in the city, Smetana became convinced that he would find
satisfaction only in a musical career.[11] He confided to his journal that he
wanted "to become a Mozart in composition and a Liszt in technique".[12]
[13]
However, the Prague idyll ended when František discovered his son's
truancy, and removed him from the city.[11] František at this time saw music
as a diverting pastime, not as a career choice.[3] Smetana was placed
temporarily with his uncle in Nové Město, where he enjoyed a brief
romance with his cousin Louisa. He commemorated their passion
in Louisa's Polka, Smetana's earliest complete composition that has
survived.[14]
An older cousin, Josef Smetana, a teacher at the Premonstratensian
School in Plzeň (Pilsen), then offered to supervise the boy's remaining
schooling, and in the summer of 1840 Smetana departed for Plzeň.[5] He
remained there until he completed his schooling in 1843. His skills as a
pianist were in great demand at the town's many soirées, and he enjoyed a
hectic social life.[13] This included a number of romances, the most
important of which was with Kateřina Kolářová, whom he had known briefly
in his early childhood. Smetana was entirely captivated with her, writing in
his journal: "When I am not with her I am sitting on hot coals and have no
peace".[15] He composed several pieces for her, among which are
two Quadrilles, a song duet, and an incomplete piano study for the left
hand.[16] He also composed his first orchestral piece, a B flat minuet.[17]
[edit]Student and teacher
Hector Berlioz, an early musical influence on Smetana

By the time Smetana completed his schooling, his father's fortunes had
declined. Although František now agreed that his son should follow a
musical career, he could not provide financial support.[13][16] In August 1843
Smetana departed for Prague with twenty gulden,[18][19] and no immediate
prospects.[20] Lacking any formal musical training, he needed a teacher,
and was introduced by Kateřina Kolářová's mother to Josef Proksch, head
of the Prague Music Institute – where Kateřina was now studying.[5]
[16]
Proksch used the most modern teaching methods, drawing
on Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz and the Leipzig circle of Liszt.[5] In January
1844 Proksch agreed to take Smetana as a pupil, and at the same time the
young musician's financial difficulties were eased when he secured an
appointment as music teacher to the family of a nobleman, Count Thun.[5]
For the next three years, besides teaching piano to the Thun children,
Smetana studied theory and composition under Proksch. The works he
composed in these years include songs,
dances, bagatelles,impromptus and the G minor Piano Sonata.[21] In 1846
Smetana attended concerts given in Prague by Berlioz, and in all likelihood
met the French master at a reception arranged by Proksch.[22] At the home
of Count Thun he met Robert and Clara Schumann, and showed them his
G minor sonata, but failed to win their approval for this work – they
detected too much of Berlioz in it.[5] Meanwhile his friendship with Kateřina
blossomed. In June 1847, on resigning his position in the Thun household,
Smetana recommended her as his replacement. He then set out on a tour
of Western Bohemia, hoping to establish a reputation as a concert pianist.
[23]

[edit]Early career
[edit]Revolutionary
Smetana's concert tour to Western Bohemia was poorly supported, so he
abandoned it and returned to Prague, where he made a living from private
pupils and occasional appearances as an accompanist in chamber
concerts.[22] He also began work on his first major orchestral work, the
Overture in D major.[24]

A depiction of the barricades on the Charles Bridge, Prague, 1848. Smetana was briefly
a participant in the uprising.

For a brief period in 1848, Smetana was a revolutionary. In the climate of

political change and upheaval that swept through Europe in that year, a
pro-democracy movement in Prague led by Smetana's old friend Karel
Havlíček was urging an end to Habsburg absolutist rule and for more
political autonomy.[25] A Citizens' Army ("Svornost") was formed to defend
the city against possible attack. Smetana wrote a series of patriotic works,
including two marches dedicated respectively to the Czech National Guard
and the Students' Legion of the University of Prague, andThe Song of
Freedom to words by Jan Kollár.[26] In June 1848, as the Habsburg armies
moved to suppress rebellious tendencies, Prague came under attack from
the Austrian forces led by the Prince of Windisch-Grätz. As a member of
Svornost, Smetana helped to man the barricades on the Charles Bridge.
[25]
The nascent uprising was quickly crushed, but Smetana avoided the
imprisonment or exile received by leaders such as Havlíček.[25] During his
brief spell with Svornost, he met the writer and leading radical, Karel
Sabina, who would later provide libretti for Smetana's first two operas.[25]
[edit]Piano Institute
Early in 1848, Smetana wrote to Franz Liszt, whom he had not yet met,
asking him to accept the dedication of a new piano work, Six
Characteristic Pieces, and recommend it to a publisher. He also requested
a loan of 400 gulden, to enable him to open a music school. Liszt replied
cordially, accepting the dedication and promising to help find a publisher,
but he offered no financial assistance.[27][28] This encouragement was the
beginning of a friendship that was of great value to Smetana in his
subsequent career.[29] Despite Liszt's lack of financial support, Smetana
was able to start a Piano Institute in late August 1848, with twelve
students.[30] After a period of struggle the Institute began to flourish and
became briefly fashionable, particularly among supporters of Czech
nationalism in whose eyes Smetana was developing a reputation. Proksch
wrote of Smetana's support for his people's cause, and said that he "could
well become the transformer of my ideas in the Czech language."[31] In
1849 the Institute was relocated to the home of Kateřina's parents, and
began to attract distinguished visitors; Liszt came regularly, and the former
emperor Ferdinand, who had settled in Prague, attended the school's
matinée concerts.[31]Smetana's performances in these concerts became a
recognised feature of Prague's musical life. In this time of relative financial
stability Smetana married Kateřina, on 27 August 1849. Four daughters
were born to the couple between 1851 and 1855.[28]
[edit]Budding composer
In 1850, notwithstanding his revolutionary sentiments, Smetana accepted
the post of Court Pianist in Ferdinand's establishment in Prague Castle.[26]
[31]
He continued teaching in the Piano Institute, and devoted himself
increasingly to composition. His works, mainly for the piano, included the
three-part Wedding Scenes, some of the music of which was later used
in The Bartered Bride.[32] He also wrote numerous short experimental
pieces collected under the name Album Leaves, and a series of polkas.
[32]
During 1853–54 he worked on a major orchestral piece, the Triumphal
Symphony, composed to commemorate the wedding of Emperor Franz
Josef.[28] The symphony was rejected by the Imperial Court, possibly on the
grounds that the brief musical references to the Austrian national
anthem were not sufficiently prominent. Undeterred, Smetana hired an
orchestra at his own expense to perform the symphony at the Konvikt Hall
in Prague on 26 February 1855. The work was coolly received, and the
concert was a financial failure.[33]
[edit]Private sorrows and professional disenchantment

An oil portrait of Smetana, 1854

In the years between 1854 and 1856 Smetana suffered a series of

personal blows. In July 1854 his second daughter, Gabriela, died
of tuberculosis. A year later his eldest daughter Bedřiška, who at the age
of four was showing signs of musical precocity, died of scarlet fever.
[34]
Smetana wrote his Piano Trio in G minor as a tribute to her memory; it
was performed in Prague on 3 December 1855 and, according to the
composer, was received "harshly" by the critics, although Liszt praised it.[5]
[35]
Smetana's sorrows continued; just after Bedřiška's death a fourth
daughter, Kateřina, had been born but she, too, died in June 1856. By this
time Smetana's wife Kateřina had also been diagnosed with tuberculosis.
[34]

In July 1856, Smetana received news of the death in exile of his

revolutionary friend Karel Havlíček.[36] The political climate in Prague was a
further source of gloom; hopes of a more enlightened government and
social reform following Franz Josef's accession in 1848 had faded as
Austrian absolutism reasserted itself under Baron Alexander von Bach.
[36]
Despite the good name of the Piano Institute, Smetana's status as a
concert pianist was generally considered to be below that of
contemporaries such as Alexander Dreyschock.[36] Critics acknowledged
Smetana's "delicate, crystalline touch", closer in style to Chopinthan Liszt,
but believed that his physical frailty was a serious drawback to his concert-
playing ambitions.[32] His main performance success during this period was
his playing of Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto at a concert celebrating the
centenary of Mozart's birth, in January 1856.[36] His disenchantment with
Prague was growing and, perhaps influenced by Dreyschock's accounts of
opportunities to be found in Sweden, Smetana decided to seek success
there. On 11 October 1856, after writing to his parents that "Prague did not
wish to acknowledge me, so I left it", he departed for Gothenburg.[37]
[edit]Years of travel
[edit]Gothenburg
Smetana initially went to Gothenburg without Kateřina. Writing to Liszt, he
said that the people there were musically unsophisticated, but he saw this
as an opportunity "for an impact I could never have achieved in
Prague."[37] Within a few weeks of his arrival he had given his first recital,
opened a music school which was rapidly overwhelmed by applications,
[38]
and become conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral
Music.[38] In a few months Smetana had achieved both professional and
social recognition in the city, although he found little time for composition;
two intended orchestral works, provisionally entitled Frithjof and The
Viking's Voyage, were sketched but abandoned.[39]

Gothenburg, Sweden, Smetana's base between 1856 and 1861

In summer 1857, Smetana came home to Prague and found Kateřina in

failing health. In June, Smetana's father František died.[40] That autumn
Smetana returned to Gothenburg, with Kateřina and their surviving
daughter Žofie, but before doing so he visited Liszt in Weimar. The
occasion was the Karl August Goethe-Schiller Jubilee celebrations;
Smetana attended performances of Liszt's Faust Symphony and the
symphonic poem Die Ideale, which invigorated and inspired him.[41] Liszt
was Smetana's principal teacher throughout the latter's creative life, and at
this time was crucially able to revive his spirits and rescue him from the
relative artistic isolation of Gothenburg.[37]
Back in Sweden, Smetana found among his new pupils a young
housewife, Fröjda Benecke, who briefly became his muse and his
mistress. In her honour Smetana transcribed two songs
fromSchubert's Die schöne Müllerin cycle, and transformed one of his own
early piano pieces into a polka entitled Vision at the Ball.[42] He also began
composing on a more expansive scale. In 1858 he completed the
symphonic poem Richard III, his first major orchestral composition since
the Triumphal Symphony. He followed this withWallenstein's Camp,
inspired by Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein drama trilogy,[43] and began a
third symphonic poem Hakon Jarl, based on the tragic drama by Danish
poet Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger.[44] Smetana also wrote a two large-
scale piano works: Macbeth and the Witches, and an Étude in C in the
style of Liszt.[45]
[edit]Bereavement, remarriage and return to Prague
Kateřina's health gradually worsened and in the spring of 1859 failed
completely. Homeward bound, she died at Dresden on 19 April 1859.
Smetana wrote that she had died "gently, without our knowing anything
until the quiet drew my attention to her."[46] After placing Žofie with
Kateřina's mother, Smetana spent time with Liszt in Weimar, where he was
introduced to the music of the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad, by
Liszt's pupil Peter Cornelius.[47] This work would influence Smetana's own
later career as an opera composer.[48] Later that year he stayed with his
younger brother Karel, and fell in love with Karel's sister-in-law Barbora
(Bettina) Ferdinandiová, sixteen years his junior. He proposed marriage,
and having secured her promise returned to Gothenburg for the 1859–60
winter.[37] The marriage took place the following year, on 10 July 1860, after
which Smetana and his new wife returned to Sweden for a final season.
This culminated in April 1861 with a piano performance in Stockholm,
attended by the Swedish royal family. The couple's first daughter, Zdeňka,
was born in September 1861.[44]
Meanwhile, the defeat of Franz Josef's army at Solferino in 1859 had
weakened the Habsburg Empire, and led to the fall from power of von
Bach.[49] This had gradually brought a more enlightened atmosphere to
Prague, and by 1861 Smetana was seeing prospects of a better future for
Czech nationalism and culture.[12][44] Before deciding his own future, in
September Smetana set out on a concert tour of Holland and Germany. He
was still hoping to secure a reputation as a pianist, but once again he
experienced failure.[44] Back in Prague, he conducted performances
of Richard III and Wallenstein's Camp in the Žofín Island concert hall in
January 1862, to a muted reception. Critics accused him of adhering too
closely to the "New German" school represented primarily by Liszt;
[50]
Smetana responded that "a prophet is without honour in his own
land."[44] In March 1862 he made a last brief visit to Gothenburg, but the
city no longer held his interest; it appeared to him a provincial backwater
and, whatever the difficulties, he now determined to seek his musical
future in Prague: "My home has rooted itself into my heart so much that
only there do I find real contentment. It is to this that I will sacrifice
myself."[51]
[edit]National prominence
[edit]Seeking recognition
In 1861, it was announced that a Provisional Theatre would be built in
Prague, as a home for Czech opera.[52] Smetana saw this as an opportunity
to write and stage opera that would reflect Czech national character,
similar to the portrayals of Russian life in Mikhail Glinka's operas.[12] He
hoped that he might be considered for the theatre's conductorship, but the
post went to Jan Nepomuk Maýr, apparently because the conservative
faction in charge of the project considered Smetana a "dangerous
modernist", in thrall to avant garde composers such as Liszt and Wagner.
[53][54]
Smetana then turned his attention to an opera competition, organised
by Count Jan von Harrach, which offered prizes of 600 gulden each for the
best comic and historical operas based on Czech culture.[53] With no useful
model on which to base his work—Czech opera as a genre scarcely
existed—Smetana had to create his own style. He engaged Karel Sabina,
his comrade from the 1848 barricades, as his librettist,[55] and received
Sabina's text in February 1862, a story of the 13th century invasion of
Bohemia by Otto of Brandenburg. In April 1863 he submitted the score,
under the title of The Brandenburgers in Bohemia.[55][56]

Prague Conservatoire (modern photograph): Smetana's bid to become its director failed.

At this stage in his career, Smetana's command of the Czech language

was poor. His generation of Czechs was educated in German,[57] and he
had difficulty expressing himself in what was supposedly his native tongue.
[56]
To overcome these linguistic deficiencies he studied Czech grammar,
and made a point of writing and speaking in Czech every day. He had
become Chorus Master of the nationalistic Hlahol Choral Society soon
after his return from Sweden, and as his fluency in the Czech language
developed he composed patriotic choruses for the Society; The Three
Riders and The Renegade were performed at concerts in early 1863.[58] In
March of that year Smetana was elected president of the music section of
Umělecká Beseda, a society for Czech artists.[56] By 1864 he was proficient
enough in the Czech language to be appointed as music critic to the main
Czech language newspaper Národní listy.[59] Meanwhile, Bettina had given
birth to another daughter, Božena.[60]
On 23 April 1864, Smetana conducted Berlioz's choral symphony Roméo
et Juliette at a concert celebrating the Shakespeare tercentenary, adding
to the programme his own March for the Shakespearean Festival.[53][56] That
year, Smetana's bid to become Director of the Prague Conservatory failed.
He had set high hopes on this appointment: "My friends are trying to
persuade me that this post might have been especially created for me," he
wrote to a Swedish friend.[61] His hopes were again dashed by his affiliation
with the perceived radical Liszt, the appointing committee choosing the
conservative patriot Josef Krejčí for the post.[62]
Almost three years passed before Smetana was declared the winner of
Harrach's opera competition.[53] Before then, on 5 January 1866, The
Brandenburgers had been performed to an enthusiastic reception at the
Provisional Theatre—over strong opposition from Maýr, who had refused
to rehearse or conduct the piece. The idiom was too advanced for Maýr's
liking, and the opera was eventually staged under the composer's own
direction.[53] "I was called on stage nine times," Smetana wrote, recording
that the house was sold out and that the critics were full of praise.[63] Music
historian Rosa Newmarch believes that, although The Brandenburgers has
not stood the test of time, it contains all the germs of Smetana's operatic
art.[64]
[edit]Opera maestro
In July 1863, Sabina had delivered the libretto for a second opera, a light
comedy entitled The Bartered Bride, which Smetana composed during the
next three years. Because of the success of The Brandenburgers, the
management of the Provisional Theatre readily agreed to stage the new
opera, which was premiered on 30 May 1866 in its original two-act version
with spoken dialogue.[56] The opera was to go through several revisions
and restructures before reaching the definitive three-act form that in due
course established Smetana's international reputation.[65][66] The opera's
first performance was a failure; it was held on one of the hottest evenings
of the year, on the eve of the Austro-Prussian War with Bohemia under
imminent threat of invasion by Prussian troops. Unsurprisingly the
occasion was poorly attended, and receipts failed to cover costs.[67] When
presented at the Provisional Theatre in its final form, in September 1870, it
was a tremendous public success.[68]
Back in 1866, as the composer of The Brandenburgers with its overtones
of German military aggression, Smetana thought he might be targeted by
the invading Prussians, so he absented himself from Prague until hostilities
ceased.[67] He returned in September, and almost immediately achieved a
long-standing ambition – appointment as principal conductor of the
Provisional Theatre, at an annual salary of 1,200 gulden.[69] In the absence
of a body of suitable Czech opera, Smetana in his first season presented
standard works by Weber, Mozart,Donizetti, Rossini and Glinka, with a
revival of his own Bartered Bride.[65][69] The quality of Smetana's production
of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar angered Glinka's champion Mily Balakirev,
who expressed himself forcefully. This caused prolonged hostility between
the two men.[69][70] On 16 May 1868 Smetana, representing Czech
musicians, helped to lay the foundation stone for the future National
Theatre;[68]he had written a Festive Overture for the occasion. That same
evening Smetana's third opera, Dalibor, was premièred at Prague's New
Town Theatre.[56] Although its initial reception was warm its reviews were
poor, and Smetana resigned himself to its failure.[71] This opera soon
became the basis of a series of attacks on Smetana, followed by a
concerted effort to drive him from his position as Provisional Theatre
conductor.[69]
[edit]Opposition
Early in his conductorship Smetana had made a powerful enemy in
František Pivoda, the Director of the Prague School of Singing. Formerly a
supporter of Smetana's, Pivoda was aggrieved when the conductor
recruited singing talent from abroad rather than from Pivoda's school.[72]
[73]
In an increasingly bitter public correspondence, Pivoda claimed that
Smetana was using his position to further his own career, at the expense
of other composers.[74]
Richard Wagner (c. 1860). Smetana was accused by his enemies of "excessive
Wagnerism".

Pivoda then took issue with Dalibor, calling it an example of extreme

"Wagnerism" and thus, unsuited as a model for Czech national opera.
[75]
"Wagnerism" meant the adoption of Wagner's theories of a continuous
role for the orchestra and the building of an integrated musical drama,
rather than a stringing together of lyrical numbers.[56][76] The Provisional
Theatre's chairman, František Rieger, had first accused Smetana of
Wagnerist tendencies after the first performance of The Brandenburgers,
[63]
and the issue eventually divided Prague's musical society. Music critic
Otakar Hostinský believed that Wagner's theories should be the basis of
the national opera, and argued that Dalibor was the beginning of the
"correct" direction. The opposite camp, led by Pivoda, supported the
principles of Italian opera, in which the voice rather than the orchestra was
the predominant dramatic device.[56]
Even within the theatre itself there was division. Rieger led a campaign to
eject Smetana from the conductorship and reappoint Maýr, and in
December 1872 a petition signed by 86 subscribers to the theatre called
for Smetana's resignation.[74] Strong support from vice-chairman Antonín
Čísek, and an ultimatum from prominent musicians among whom
was Antonín Dvořák, ensured Smetana's survival. In January 1873 he was
reappointed, with a bigger salary and increased responsibility as Artistic
Director.[56][74]
Smetana gradually brought more operas by emergent Czech composers to
the theatre, but little of his own work.[74] By 1872 he had completed his
monumental fourth opera, Libuše, his most ambitious work to date,[77] but
was withholding its premiere for the future opening of the National Theatre.
[78]
The machinations of Pivoda and his supporters distracted Smetana
from composition,[74] and he had further vexation when The Bartered
Bride was produced in St Petersburg, in January 1871. Although the
audience was enthusiastic,[74] press reports were hostile, one describing
the work as "no better than that of a gifted fourteen-year-old
boy."[79] Smetana was deeply offended, and blamed his old adversary,
Balakirev, for inciting negative feelings against the opera.[79]
[edit]Final decade

Smetana near the end of his life

[edit]Deafness
In the respite following his reappointment, Smetana concentrated on his
fifth opera, The Two Widows, composed between June 1873 and January
1874.[80] After its first performance at the Provisional Theatre on 27
March 1874, Smetana's supporters presented him with a decorative baton.
[56]
But his opponents continued to attack him, comparing his conductorship
unfavourably with the Maýr regime and claiming that under Smetana
"Czech opera sickens to death at least once annually."[80] By the summer
Smetana was ill; a throat infection was followed by a rash and an apparent
blockage to the ears. By mid-August, unable to work, he transferred his
duties to his deputy, Adolf Čech. A press announcement stated that
Smetana had "become ill as a result of nervous strain caused by certain
people recently."[80]
In September, Smetana told the theatre he would resign his appointment
unless his health improved.[81] He had become totally deaf in his right ear,
and in October lost all hearing in his left ear also. After his subsequent
resignation the theatre offered him an annual pension of 1,200 gulden for
the continued right to perform his operas, an arrangement which Smetana
reluctantly accepted.[82] Money raised in Prague by former students, and by
former lover Fröjda Benecke in Gothenburg, amounted to 1,244 gulden.
[83]
This allowed Smetana to seek medical treatment abroad, but to no
avail.[56] In January 1875 Smetana wrote in his journal: "If my disease is
incurable, then I should prefer to be liberated from this life."[84] His spirits
were further lowered at this time by a deterioration in his relationship with
Bettina, mainly over money matters.[85] "I cannot live under the same roof
as a person who hates and persecutes me", Smetana informed her.
[86]
Although divorce was considered, the couple stayed unhappily together.
[87]

[edit]Late flowering
In worsening health, Smetana continued to compose. In June 1876 he,
Bettina and their two daughters left Prague for Jabkenice, the home of his
eldest daughter Žofie where, in tranquil surroundings, Smetana was able
to work undisturbed.[88] Before leaving Prague he had begun a cycle of six
symphonic poems, called Má vlast ("My Fatherland"),[89] and had
completed the first two, Vyšehrad and Vltava, which had both been
performed in Prague during 1875.[90] In Jabkenice Smetana composed four
more movements, the complete cycle being first performed on 5
November 1882 under the baton of Adolf Čech.[91] Other major works
composed in these years were the E minor String Quartet, From My Life, a
series of Czech dances for piano, several choral pieces and three more
operas: The Kiss, The Secret and The Devil's Wall, all of which received
their first performances between 1876 and 1882.[91]

The National Theatre in Prague, opened 1881, destroyed by fire, rebuilt in 1883

The long-delayed premiere of Smetana's opera Libuše finally arrived when

the National Theatre opened on 11 June 1881. He had not initially been
given tickets, but at the last minute was asked into the theatre director's
box. The audience received the work enthusiastically, and Smetana was
called to the stage repeatedly.[92][93] Shortly after this event the new theatre
was destroyed by fire; despite his infirmities, Smetana helped to raise
funds for the rebuilding.[91][94] The restored theatre reopened on 18
November 1883, again with Libuše[91]
These years saw Smetana's growing recognition as the principal exponent
of Czech national music.[91] This status was celebrated by several events
during Smetana's final years. On4 January 1880, a special concert in
Prague marked the 50th anniversary of his first public performance;
Smetana attended, and played his Piano Trio in G minor from 1855. In
May 1882The Bartered Bride was given its 100th performance, an
unprecedented event in the history of Czech opera, and so popular that a
repeat "100th performance" was staged.[91] A gala concert and banquet
was arranged to honour Smetana's 60th birthday in March 1884, but he
was too ill to attend.[91]
[edit]Illness and death

Smetana's gravestone at the Vyšehrad Cemetery, Prague

In 1879, Smetana had written to a friend, the Czech poet Jan Neruda,
revealing fears of the onset of madness.[95] By the winter of 1882–83 he
was experiencing depression, insomnia, and hallucinations, together with
giddiness, cramp and a temporary loss of speech.[95] In 1883 he began
writing a new symphonic suite, Prague Carnival, but could get no further
than an Introduction and a Polonaise.[96] He started a new opera, Viola,
based on the character in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night,[97] but wrote only
fragments as his mental state gradually deteriorated.[96] In October 1883
his behaviour at a private reception in Prague disturbed his friends;[96] by
the middle of February 1884 he had ceased to be coherent, and was
periodically violent.[98] On 23 April his family, unable to nurse him any
longer, removed him to the Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum in Prague, where he
died on 12 May 1884.[91][98]
The Bedřich Smetana Museum on the banks of the Vltava, Prague

The hospital registered the cause of death as senile dementia.[98] However,

Smetana's family believed that his physical and mental decline was due
tosyphilis.[98] An analysis of the autopsy report, published by the German
neurologist Dr Ernst Levin in 1972, came to the same conclusion.[99] Tests
carried out by Prof. Emanuel Vlček in the late 20th century on samples of
muscular tissue from Smetana's exhumed body provided further evidence
of the disease. However, this research has been challenged by Czech
physician Dr Jiří Ramba, who has argued that Vlček's tests do not provide
a basis for a reliable conclusion, citing the age and state of the tissues and
highlighting reported symptoms of Smetana's that were incompatible with
syphilis.[100]
Smetana's funeral took place on 15 May, at the Týn Church in Prague's
Old Town. The subsequent procession to the Vyšehrad Cemetery was led
by members of the Hlahol, bearing torches, and was followed by a large
crowd.[98] The grave later became a place of pilgrimage for musical visitors
to Prague.[101] On the funeral evening, a scheduled performance of The
Bartered Bride at the National Theatre was allowed to proceed, the stage
draped with black cloth as a mark of respect.[98]
Smetana was survived by Bettina, their daughters Zdeňka and Božena,
and by Žofie. None of them played any significant role in Smetana's
musical life. Bettina lived until 1908; Žofie, who had married Josef Schwarz
in 1874, predeceased her mother, dying in 1902.[2] The younger daughters
eventually married, living out their lives away from the public eye.[2] A
permanent memorial to Smetana's life and work is the Smetana Museum
in Prague, originally founded in 1926 within the Charles University's
Institute for Musicology.[102] In 1936 the museum moved to the former
Waterworks building on the banks of the Vltava, and since 1976 has been
part of the Czech Museum of Music.[102]

[edit]Music

See also: List of compositions by Bedřich Smetana and List of operas by

Smetana

Franz Liszt, a primary influence on Smetana throughout the latter's composing career

The basic materials from which Smetana fashioned his art, according to
Newmarch, were nationalism, realism and romanticism.[103] A particular
feature of all his later music is its descriptive character – all his major
compositions outside his operas are written to programmes, and many are
specifically autobiographical.[104] Smetana's champions have recognised
the major influences on his work as Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz – the
"progressives" – while those same advocates have often played down the
significance of "traditionalist" composers such
as Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Meyerbeer.[105]
[edit]Piano works
All but a handful of Smetana's compositions before his departure for
Gothenburg had been piano works.[106]Some of these early pieces have
been dismissed by music historian Harold Schonberg as "bombastic
virtuoso rhetoric derived from Liszt".[107] Under Proksch, however, Smetana
acquired more polish, as revealed in works such as the G minor Sonata of
1846 and the E flat Polka of the same year. The set of Six Characteristic
Pieces of 1848 was dedicated to Liszt, who described it as "the most
outstanding, finely felt and finely finished pieces that have recently come to
my note."[108] In this period Smetana planned a cycle of so-called "album
leaves", short pieces in every major and minor key, after the manner of
Chopin's Preludes.[109] The project became somewhat disorganised; in the
pieces completed, some keys are repeated while others are
unrepresented.[109][110] After Smetana's final return from Gothenburg, when
he committed himself primarily to the development of Czech opera, he
wrote nothing for the piano for 13 years.[110]
In his last decade Smetana composed three substantial piano cycles. The
first, from 1875, was entitled Dreams. It was dedicated to former pupils of
Smetana's, who had raised funds to cover medical expenses, and is also a
tribute to the composer's models of the 1840s—Schumann, Chopin and
Liszt.[110] Smetana's last major piano works were the two Czech
Dances cycles of 1877 and 1879. The first of these had the purpose, as
Smetana explained to his publisher, of "idealising the polka, as Chopin in
his day did with the mazurka."[110] The second cycle is a medley of dances,
each given a specific title so that people would know "which dances with
real names we Czechs have."[110]
[edit]Vocal and choral
Smetana's early songs are settings of German poems for single voice.
Apart from his 1848 Song of Freedom, he did not begin to write pieces for
a full choir until after his Gothenburg sojourn, when he composed
numerous works for the Hlahol choral society, mostly for unaccompanied
male voices.[111] Smetana's choral music is generally nationalistic in
character, ranging in scale from the short Ceremonial Chorus written after
the death of the composer's revolutionary friend Havlíček, to the setting
of Song of the Sea, a substantial work with the character of a choral
drama.[112]
Towards the end of his life Smetana returned to simple song-writing, with
five Evening Songs (1879) to words by the poet Vítězslav Hálek. His final
completed work, Our Song (1883), is the last of four settings of texts by
Josef Srb-Debrnov. Despite the state of Smetana's health, this is a happy
celebration of Czech song and dance. The piece was lost for many years,
and only received its first performance after rediscovery in 1924.[113]
[edit]Chamber
Apart from a juvenile fantasia for violin and piano, Smetana composed only
four chamber works, yet each had a deep personal significance.[114] The
Piano Trio in G minor of 1855 was composed after the death of his
daughter Bedřiška; its style is close to that of Robert Schumann, with hints
of Liszt, and the overall tone is elegiac.[115] It was 20 years before he
returned to the chamber genre with his first String Quartet. This E minor
work, subtitled From my life, was autobiographical in character, illustrating
the composer's youthful enthusiasm for his art, his friendships and loves
and, in a change of mood, the onset of his deafness represented by a long
harmonic E in the final movement above ominous string tremolos.
[116]
His second String Quartet, in D minor, written in 1882–83 in defiance of
his doctor's orders to refrain from all musical activity,[117][118] was composed
in short snatches, "a swirl of music of a person who has lost his
hearing."[119] It represents Smetana's frustrations with his life, but is not
wholly gloomy, and includes a bright polka.[119] It was one of his final
compositions; between the two quartets he wrote a violin and piano
duet From the homeland, a mixture of melancholy and happiness with
strong affinity to Czech folk material.[119]
[edit]Orchestral
Dissatisfied with his first large-scale orchestral work, the D major Overture
of 1848,[120] Smetana studied passages from Beethoven,Mendelssohn,
Weber and Berlioz before producing his Triumphal Symphony of 1853.
[121]
Though this is dismissed by Rosa Newmarch as "an epithalamium for a
Habsburg Prince",[122] Smetana's biographer Brian Large identifies much in
the piece that characterises the composer's more mature works.
[123]
Despite the symphony's rejection by the Court and the lukewarm
reception on its premiere, Smetana did not abandon the work. It was well
received in Gothenburg in 1860,[124] and a revised version was performed
in Prague in 1882, without the "triumphal" tag, under Adolf Čech.[121] The
piece is now sometimes called the Festive Symphony.
Smetana's visit to Liszt at Weimar in the summer of 1857, where he heard
the latter's Faust Symphony and Die Ideale, caused a material
reorientation of Smetana's orchestral music. These works gave Smetana
answers to many compositional problems relating to the structure of
orchestral music,[41] and suggested a means for expressing literary
subjects by a synthesis between music and text, rather than by simple
musical illustration.[121][125] These insights enabled Smetana to write the
three Gothenburg symphonic poems, (Richard III, Wallenstein's
Camp and Hakon Jarl),[121] works which transformed Smetana from a
composer primarily of salon pieces to a modern neo-Romantic, capable of
handling large-scale forces and demonstrating the latest musical concepts.
[121]

Live recordings of Smetana's works:

Má vlast::Šárka

Má vlast:: Vltava

Problems listening to these files? See media help.

From 1862 Smetana was largely occupied with opera and, apart from a
few short pieces,[126] did not return to purely orchestral music before
beginning Má vlast in 1872. In his introduction to the Collected Edition
Score, František Bartol brackets Má vlast with the opera Libuše as "direct
symbols of [the] consummating national struggle".[127] Má vlast is the first of
Smetana's mature large-scale works that is independent of words, and its
musical ideas are bolder than anything he had tried before.[128] To
musicologist John Clapham, the cycle presents "a cross-section of Czech
history and legend and impressions of its scenery, and ... conveys vividly
to us Smetana's view of the ethos and greatness of the nation."[129] Despite
its nationalistic associations this work has, according to Newmarch, carried
Smetana's name further afield than anything he wrote, with the exception
of The Bartered Bride Overture.[130] Smetana dedicated Má vlast to the city
of Prague; after its first performance in November 1882 it was acclaimed
by the Czech musical public as the true representation of Czech national
style.[121] Its Vltava (or "The Moldau" in German) movement, depicting the
river that runs through Prague towards its junction with the Elbe, is
Smetana's best-known and most internationally popular orchestral
composition.[131]
[edit]Opera
See also: List of operas by Smetana
Smetana had virtually no precursors in Czech opera apart from František
Škroup, whose works had rarely lasted beyond one or two performances.
[132]
In his mission to create a new canon, rather than using traditional
folksong Smetana turned to the popular dance music of his youth,
especially the polka, to establish his link with the vernacular.[132] He drew
on existing European traditions, notably Slavonic and French,[132] but made
only scarce use of arias, preferring to base his scores on ensembles and
choruses.[133]

A 1919 edition of the score ofThe Bartered Bride

Live recording of Smetana's works
Overture: The Bartered Bride

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Although a follower of Wagner's reforms of the operatic genre, which he

believed would be its salvation,[76] Smetana rejected accusations of
excessive Wagnerism, claiming that he was sufficiently occupied with
"Smetanism, for that is the only honest style!"[134] The predominantly
"national" character of the first four operas is tempered by the lyrical
romanticism of those written later,[135]particularly the last three, composed
in the years of Smetana's deafness. The first of this final trio, The Kiss,
written when Smetana was receiving painful medical treatment is
described by Newmarch as a work of serene beauty, in which tears and
smiles alternate throughout the score.[136] Smetana's librettist for "The Kiss"
was the young feminist Eliška Krásnohorská, who also supplied the texts
for his final two operas. She dominated the ailing composer, who had no
say in the subject-matter, the voice types or the balance between solos,
duets and ensembles.[132] Nevertheless, critics have noted few signs of a
decline in Smetana's powers in these works, while his increasing
proficiency in the Czech language meant that his settings of the language
are much superior to those of his earlier operas.[132]
Smetana's eight operas created the bedrock of the Czech opera repertory,
but of these only The Bartered Bride is performed regularly outside the
composer's homeland. After reaching Vienna in 1892,[137] and London in
1895,[138] it rapidly became part of the repertory of every major opera
company worldwide. Newmarch argues that The Bartered Bride, while not
a "gem of the first order", is nevertheless "a perfectly cut and polished
stone of its kind."[138] Its trademark overture, which Newmarch says "lifts us
off our feet with its madcap vivacity",[138] was composed in a piano version
before Smetana received the draft libretto. Clapham believes that this has
few precedents in the entire history of opera.[139] Smetana himself was later
inclined to disparage his achievement: "The Bartered Bride was merely
child's play, written straight off the reel".[138] In the view of German critic
William Ritter, Smetana's creative powers reached their zenith with his
third opera, Dalibor.[140]
[edit]Reception
Even in his own homeland the general public was slow to recognise
Smetana. As a young composer and pianist he was well regarded in
Prague musical circles, and had the approval of Liszt, Proksch and others,
but the public's lack of acknowledgement was a principal factor behind his
self-imposed exile in Sweden. After his return he was not taken particularly
seriously,[58] and was hard put to get audiences for his new works, hence
his "prophet without honour" remark after the nearly empty hall and
indifferent reception of Richard III and Wallenstein's Camp at Žofín Island
in January 1862.[141]
Smetana's first noteworthy public success was his initial opera The
Brandenburgers in Bohemia, in 1866 when he was already 42 years old.
His second opera, The Bartered Bride, survived the unfortunate mistiming
of its opening night and became an enduring popular triumph. The different
style of his third opera, Dalibor, closer to that of Wagnerian music drama,
was not readily understood by the public and was condemned by critics
who believed that Czech opera should be based on folk-song.[142][143] It
disappeared from the repertory after only a handful of performances.
[143]
Thereafter the machinations which accompanied Smetana's tenure as
Provisional Theatre conductor restricted his creative output until 1874.
In his final decade, the most fruitful of his compositional career despite his
deafness and increasing ill-health, Smetana belatedly received national
recognition. Of his later operas, The Two Widows and The Secret were
warmly received,[144] while The Kiss was greeted by an "overwhelming
ovation".[91] The ceremonial opera Libuše was received with thunderous
applause for the composer; by this time (1881) the disputes around his
music had declined, and the public was ready to honour him as the
founder of Czech music.[145] Nevertheless, the first few performances in
October 1882 of an evidently under-rehearsed The Devil's Wall were
chaotic,[146] and the composer was left feeling "dishonoured and dispirited".
[147]
This disappointment was swiftly mitigated by the acclaim which
followed the first performance of the complete Má vlast cycle in November:
"Everyone rose to his feet and the same storm of unending applause was
repeated after each of the six parts ... At the end of Blaník [the final part]
the audience was beside itself and the people could not bring themselves
to take leave of the composer."[148]

[edit]Character and reputation

Smetana's biographers describe him as physically frail and unimpressive in
appearance, yet at least in his youth he had a joie-de-vivre which women
evidently found attractive.[149] He was also excitable, passionate and
strong-willed, determined to make his career in music whatever the
hardships, over the wishes of his father who wanted him to become a
brewer or a civil servant.[16] Throughout his career he stood his ground;
when under the severest of criticism for the "Wagnerism" in Dalibor he
responded by writing Libuše, even more firmly based on the scale and
concept of Wagnerian music drama.[150] His personal life became stressful;
his marriage to Bettina was loveless, and effectively broke down altogether
in the years of illness and relative poverty towards the end of his life.
[151]
Little of his relationships with his children is recorded, although it is
reported that, on the day that he was transferred to the asylum, Žofie was
"crying as though her heart would break".[152]

The Vltava river, flowing through Prague

There is broad agreement among most commentators that Smetana

created a canon of Czech opera where none had previously existed, and
that he developed a style of music in all his compositions that equated with
the emergent Czech national spirit.[105][153][154] A modified view is presented
by music writer Michael Steen, who questions whether "nationalistic music"
can in fact exist: "We should recognise that, whereas music is infinitely
expressive, on its own it is not good at describing concrete, earthly objects
or concepts."[155] He concludes that much is dependent upon what listeners
are conditioned to hear.[155]
According to musicologist John Tyrrell, Smetana's close identification with
Czech nationalism, and the tragic circumstances of his last years, have
tended to affect the objectivity with which his work has been assessed,
particularly in his native land.[105] Tyrrell argues that the almost iconic status
awarded to Smetana in his homeland "monumentalized him into a figure
where any criticism of his life or work was discouraged" by the Czech
authorities, even as late as the last part of the 20th century.[105] As a result,
Tyrrell claims, a view of Czech music has been propagated which
downplays the contributions of contemporaries and successors such
as Dvořák, Janáček,Josef Suk and other lesser-known figures.[105] This is
at odds with perceptions in the outside world, where Dvořák is far more
frequently played and much better known. Harold Schonberg observes that
"Smetana was the one who founded Czech music, but Antonín Dvořák ...
was the one who popularized it."[12]

[edit]Notes and references

1. ^ a b Clapham (1972), pp. 9–11
2. ^ a b c Large, p. 395
3. ^ a b Large, p. 3
4. ^ a b Steen, p. 694
5. ^ a b c d e f g Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music
Online, ed. Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 1)
6. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 12
7. ^ Newmarch, p. 54
8. ^ a b Large, p. 5
9. ^ a b c Clapham (1972), pp. 13–14
10. ^ Large, pp. 6–7. Havlíček was also known as Karel Havlíček
Borovský.
11. ^ a b c d e Large, pp. 7–10
12. ^ a b c d Schonberg, p. 77
13. ^ a b c Newmarch, p. 56
14. ^ Large, pp. 10–11
15. ^ Large, p. 17
16. ^ a b c d Large, p. 19
17. ^ Clapham (1972), pp. 15–16
18. ^ Newmarch, p. 57
19. ^ It is difficult to equate the value of a mid-19th century Austro-
Hungarian gulden to 21st century dollars or sterling. A general
assessment might be made on the basis of Smetana's annual salary in
1866, when he was appointed conductor of the Czech Provisional Theatre
– 1,200 gulden. Clapham (1972), p. 34
20. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 17
21. ^ Large, pp. 29–35
22. ^ a b Clapham (1972), p. 19
23. ^ Large, p. 39
24. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 21
25. ^ a b c d Large, pp. 42–43
26. ^ a b Steen, p. 696
27. ^ Steen, pp. 695–96
28. ^ a b c Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online, ed.
Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 2)
29. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 20
30. ^ Large, p. 48
31. ^ a b c Large, pp. 48–49
32. ^ a b c Large, pp. 51–54
33. ^ Large, pp. 57–62
34. ^ a b Clapham (1972), p. 22
35. ^ Large, pp. 63–65
36. ^ a b c d Large, pp. 67–69
37. ^ a b c d Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online,
ed. Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 3)
38. ^ a b Large, pp. 71–75
39. ^ Large. p. 78
40. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 25
41. ^ a b Large, p. 79
42. ^ Large, pp. 80–82
43. ^ Newmarch, p. 60
44. ^ a b c d e Clapham (1972), pp. 28–30
45. ^ Large, pp. 84–94
46. ^ Large, pp. 95–97
47. ^ According to Gerald Abraham, Smetana had met Cornelius at
Weimar two years previously, while the latter was working on Der Barbier.
Reportedly the two composers discussed the need for "a modern type of
comic opera as a complement to Wagner." Abraham, p. 29
48. ^ Large, pp. 98–99 and p. 160
49. ^ Large, p. 114
50. ^ Clapham (1980) p. 393
51. ^ Large, p. 120
52. ^ The official title for this theatre was the "Royal Provincial Czech
Theatre" (Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online, ed.
Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 4))
53. ^ a b c d e Clapham (1972), pp. 32–33
54. ^ Large, p. 126
55. ^ a b Large, pp. 140–43
56. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music
Online, ed. Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 4)
57. ^ Grout, p. 532
58. ^ a b Large, pp. 121–25
59. ^ Newmarch, p. 62
60. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 33
61. ^ Large, p. 134
62. ^ Clapham (1980), p. 394
63. ^ a b Large, p. 145
64. ^ Newmarch, p. 64
65. ^ a b Large, pp. 167–68
66. ^ Large, pp. 399–408
67. ^ a b Large, pp. 165–67
68. ^ a b Newmarch, p. 69
69. ^ a b c d Clapham (1972), pp. 34–36
70. ^ Large, pp. 209–10
71. ^ Large, p. 197
72. ^ Steen, p. 701
73. ^ Clapham (1980) p. 394
74. ^ a b c d e f Clapham (1972), pp. 38–40
75. ^ Newmarch, p. 71
76. ^ a b Newmarch, p. 65
77. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 99
78. ^ Large, p. 220
79. ^ a b Large, p. 171
80. ^ a b c Clapham (1972), pp. 41–42
81. ^ Clapham (1972), pp. 43–45
82. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 44. It appears (Clapham, 1972, pp. 48–49)
that this pension was withheld from time to time, causing Smetana much
financial hardship.
83. ^ Large, pp. 294–95
84. ^ Large, p. 303
85. ^ Large, pp. 322–23
86. ^ Large, p. 374, from an undated letter to Bettina
87. ^ Large, p. 374
88. ^ Steen, p. 702
89. ^ Originally, the work was entitled simply Vlast ("Fatherland"). The
pronoun had been added by May 1883. Large, pp. 266–67
90. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 47
91. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music
Online, ed. Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 5)
92. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 51
93. ^ Large, pp. 222–23
94. ^ Steen, pp. 702–03
95. ^ a b Large, pp. 370–72
96. ^ a b c Clapham (1972), pp. 54–56
97. ^ Newmarch, p. 89
98. ^ a b c d e f Large, pp. 390–94
99. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 151
100. ^ Ramba, Jiří (2009 (2nd edition)). Slavné české lebky (Famous
Czech Skulls). Prague: Galén. pp. 151–299. ISBN 978-80-7262-325-
9. (Czech)
101. ^ Newmarch, p. 90
102. ^ a b "Stálé expozice Národního muzea". Národní Muzeum.
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103. ^ Newmarch, pp. 90–91
104. ^ Newmarch, pp. 100–01
105. ^ a b c d e Tyrrell, John. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online, ed.
Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 10)
106. ^ See Large, pp. 425–30 Appendix G: Works in order of
composition
107. ^ Schonberg, p. 78
108. ^ Large, p. 41
109. ^ a b Clapham (1972), pp. 58–64
110. ^ a b c d e Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online,
ed. Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 9)
111. ^ Large, pp. 122–25
112. ^ Clapham (1972), pp. 87–89
113. ^ Large, p. 378
114. ^ Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online, ed.
Laura Macy. Retrieved 12 May 2009. (Section 8)
115. ^ Clapham (1972), pp. 65–66
116. ^ Katz, Derek (1997). "Smetana's Second String Quartet: Voice of
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117. ^ Large, pp. 376–77
118. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 54
119. ^ a b c Clapham (1972), pp. 68–70
120. ^ Large, p. 46
121. ^ a b c d e f Ottlová, Marta. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online,
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122. ^ Newmarch, p. 59
123. ^ Large, p. 62
124. ^ Large, p. 108
125. ^ Large, p. 85
126. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 138
127. ^ Clapham (1972), pp. 76–84
128. ^ Large, p. 288
129. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 76
130. ^ Newmarch, p. 91
131. ^ Clapham, p. 80
132. ^ a b c d e Tyrrell, John. "Smetana, Bedrich". Grove Music Online, ed.
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134. ^ Letter to Adolf Cech 4, December 1882, quoted in Clapham
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135. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 104
136. ^ Newmarch, pp. 83–84
137. ^ Tyrrell, John. "The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta)". Grove
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138. ^ a b c d Newmarch, p. 67
139. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 94
140. ^ Newmarch, p. 72
141. ^ Large, p. 119
142. ^ Large, pp. 204–05
143. ^ a b Clapham (1972), p. 36
144. ^ Clapham (1972) p. 41 and p. 49
145. ^ Large, p. 348
146. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 53
147. ^ Large, p. 370
148. ^ Large, p. 268
149. ^ Large, p. 3 and p. 10
150. ^ Large, p. 205
151. ^ Large, pp. 304–05
152. ^ Large, p. 391
153. ^ Clapham (1972), p. 123
154. ^ Large, preface p. xvii
155. ^ a b Steen, pp. 690–91

[edit]Sources

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Faber and Faber.
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Musicians (Special English edition) ed. Stanley Sadie. 17. London:
Macmillan. pp. 391–403. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
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J.M. Dent. ISBN 0-460-03133-3.
 Grout, Donald Jay and Hermine Wegel Williams (2003). A Short
History of Opera. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-
11958-5. Retrieved 10 June 2009.
 Katz, Derek (1997). "Smetana's Second String Quartet: Voice of
Madness or Triumph of Spirit". The Musical Quarterly (Oxford:
OUP)81 (4): 516–36. doi:10.1093/mq/81.4.516. Retrieved 24
May 2009. (subscription required)
 Large, Brian (1970). Smetana. London: Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-
0512-7.
 Newmarch, Rosa (1942). The Music of Czechoslovakia. Oxford:
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 Ramba, Jiří (2009 (2nd edition)). Slavné české lebky (Famous
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 Schonberg, Harold C. (1975). The Lives of the Great Composers,
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June 2009. (Czech)
 Steen, Michael (2003). The Lives and Times of the Great
Composers. London: Icon Books. ISBN 978-1-84046-679-9.
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Online, ed. Laura Macy. Retrieved 10 June 2009. (subscription
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