Bedřich Smetana
"At six o'clock on the morning of October 20, 1874, I became completely deaf." — an entry he left in his diary
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
The people around him ⏳🌊
- FamilyFrantišek Smetana
His father, a brewer and amateur violinist, was the root of his music, yet he opposed his son making a living from it.
- TeacherJosef Proksch
The teacher who gave him his grounding in harmony and composition in Prague.
- InfluenceFranz Liszt
He encouraged the work the young composer dedicated to him in his years of obscurity and helped see it into print; he remained Smetana's musical ideal for life.
- FamilyKateřina Kolářová
His first wife, with whom he had four daughters; she died young of tuberculosis.
- FamilyBettina Ferdinandiová
His second wife, who stayed by his side through the deaf years of his old age.
- FriendshipAntonín Dvořák
A younger composer who played viola in the Provisional Theatre orchestra; Smetana recognized his gift early and encouraged him.
I. The boy from Litomyšl · 1824–1839 (age 0–15)
(Birth) He was born in March 1824 in Litomyšl, a small town in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic), then part of the Austrian Empire. His father, František Smetana, was a brewer who managed a brewery owned by Count Waldstein, and in his spare time an amateur musician who played the violin. His mother, Barbora, kept house and looked after a large brood of children. (Talent) Young Bedřich took to the violin and piano early, and by the age of six he was already accomplished enough to appear in a public concert. He grew up in a household where music was part of daily life, joining the family string quartet his father led. (Conflict) His father regarded music as nothing more than a pastime and hoped his son would take a steady path, in law or in an office. He drifted from school to school with unremarkable marks in other subjects, but his passion for music never wavered.
II. Years of study in Prague · 1840–1848 (age 16–24)
(Apprenticeship) In the early 1840s he came to Prague to study music in earnest. Under the pianist and teacher Josef Proksch he laid the foundations of harmony and composition; Proksch recognized his talent and trained him methodically. (Dedication) In 1848 he dedicated his Six Characteristic Pieces, Op. 1, to Franz Liszt and sent him a letter. Liszt encouraged the unknown young composer and put him in touch with a publisher, and this became the turning point that drew Smetana, for the rest of his life, toward Liszt and the musical ideals of the New German School. (Revolution) That same year the young Smetana joined the revolution that broke out in Prague, even composing marches near the barricades. It was the moment he began to awaken to giving voice to the Czech nation within the Habsburg Empire. (Language) Raised in a German-speaking household, he spoke Czech poorly, and around this time he began deliberately relearning it. It was an ironic start for a composer who would go on to write the Czech national opera.
A work dedicated to Liszt in his years of obscurity, it was the starting point of the Lisztian musical ideals he held all his life.
- The first piece opens with forceful octaves and dazzling fingerwork, showing how quickly the young composer absorbed the Lisztian style of piano virtuosity.
- In the slow movement the melody passes between right hand and left and spreads out broadly, echoing Liszt's signature resonance that makes the whole keyboard ring.
- The fast passagework of the final piece is known as a spot where a pianist's fingers easily tangle, and it is still often played as a challenge piece by piano students.
III. Marriage and loss · 1849–1856 (age 25–32)
(Marriage) In 1849 he married the pianist Kateřina Kolářová. They had known each other since childhood, and both had studied music with Proksch. A year earlier, in 1848, he had already opened his own music school in Prague to earn a living. (Daughters) The couple had four daughters: Bedřiška, Gabriela, Žofie and Kateřina. The eldest, Bedřiška, was exceptionally bright and musically gifted, and she was the apple of her father's eye. (Death) Between 1854 and 1855 the second daughter and then the eldest died one after the other. The grief of losing four-year-old Bedřiška to scarlet fever weighed on him for a long time. (Trio) In the winter of the year he lost his daughter, he wrote the Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15. The anguished violin melody at its opening poured that grief out in music, and Liszt, who visited Smetana in Bohemia the following year and heard the piece, is said to have been deeply moved.
Written in the winter he lost his daughter Bedřiška, it is his most personal work, grief poured out in music.
- At the opening of the first movement, the violin's lamenting melody, sounding alone without accompaniment, seems to transcribe directly the sorrow of a father who has lost his daughter.
- In the passages where piano and strings trade phrases, the music surges violently and subsides again and again, as if painting emotional turmoil straight into sound.
- The final movement leaves the slow grief behind and closes at a bright tempo, commonly heard as a will to move beyond loss.
IV. Exile in Gothenburg · 1856–1861 (age 32–37)
(Emigration) The music school did not go as he had hoped, and, beset by debt, he left for Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1856. There he began a new life as conductor of the choral society and as a piano teacher. (Activity) In Gothenburg he built a reputation as a conductor and wrote works such as the symphonic poems Richard III and Wallenstein's Camp, mastering the idiom of Lisztian program music. Even amid the harsh Nordic winters and the loneliness of life abroad, he immersed himself in composition. (Bereavement) In 1859, as he was leaving Sweden for home with his wife Kateřina, who was suffering from tuberculosis, she died in Dresden on the way. The following year he married Bettina Ferdinandiová.
V. The age of national opera · 1861–1874 (age 37–50)
(Homecoming) In 1861 he returned to Prague for good. At a time of rising Czech national consciousness, writing opera in Czech had become a symbolic task in building a national culture, and Smetana stood at the forefront. (The Bartered Bride) The comic opera The Bartered Bride, premiered in 1866, was met at first with a lukewarm response, but after several revisions it took its place as the opera Czechs love most. Drawing on a village wedding and folk dances, it captured the simple joys of life. (Conductor) That same year he was appointed principal conductor of Prague's Provisional Theatre and led the way in bringing Czech-language opera to the stage. In 1868 he presented Dalibor, a portrait of a hero from Czech history. (Conflict) Because his style had absorbed the musical language of Liszt and Wagner, conservative nationalist critics attacked him as 'too German.' Though he was hailed as the father of Czech national music, he was dogged all his life by this contradictory criticism. (Dvořák) Among the violists in the Provisional Theatre orchestra was the young Antonín Dvořák. Smetana recognized the talent of this reticent younger colleague early and encouraged him, and their friendship became a bridge carrying Czech music on to the next generation.
A comic opera about a village wedding that, after several revisions, became the Czech national opera.
- The overture dispenses with a slow introduction and launches straight into a fugue (a texture built up in layers like a round), the strings chasing one another at speed, unfolding the bustle of a village fair in a single stroke.
- The 'Polka' dance at the end of Act I and the 'Furiant' in Act II borrow the rhythms of Czech folk dance outright, and the orchestra faithfully recreates their lively, off-beat exuberance.
- The overture's fast string passages are counted among the most demanding in the repertoire, where orchestral players' fingers have to move busiest of all.
VI. A homeland in silence · 1874–1878 (age 50–54)
(Tinnitus) From the spring of 1874 a high-pitched ringing began sounding ceaselessly in his ears. In his diary he wrote that at six o'clock on the morning of October 20 that year he went completely deaf. For a fifty-year-old conductor and composer, losing his hearing meant the collapse of both livelihood and career. (Resignation) In the end he had to step down as conductor of the Provisional Theatre. With his income cut off and even his health faltering, he still did not stop composing. (Má vlast) In utter silence he began writing the cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast. It comprises six symphonic poems depicting the rivers and legends, forests and fields of Bohemia; among them, “Vltava (The Moldau)” traces the journey of a river that rises from two springs, flows past Prague and on toward the sea. (Quartet) In 1876 he completed String Quartet No. 1, From My Life. It depicts the hopes and dances of youth and first love, and, in the final movement, a violin note that suddenly soars high, directly portraying the tinnitus that had struck him.
Written when he was already completely deaf, this part of a cycle is his signature work, a portrait in sound of his homeland's river.
- In the opening, a rippling melody traded back and forth between flute and clarinet depicts the birth of the river from two springs.
- The 'Vltava theme' that the full strings then take up sings of the river's broad, winding flow, a melody so widely known that it turns up often in films and advertisements.
- It is rewarding to listen closely through the middle section, where the instrumentation and mood shift sharply from scene to scene: the hunting horns, the polka of a village wedding, the dance of the water nymphs by moonlight.
- Near the end, as the river passes through St. John's Rapids and flows beneath Vyšehrad in Prague, the majestic brass theme that rings out is a direct quotation of the Vyšehrad melody he wrote for another piece.
An autobiographical quartet written as he looked back on his life, with his tinnitus painted directly into the final movement.
- The theme that opens the first movement, beginning darkly in the viola's low register, is the passage the composer himself described as 'a foreboding of the fate to come.'
- The second movement is a lively polka, which Smetana said recalls the joy of life he felt at the balls of his youth.
- Midway through the fourth movement, the first violin suddenly sustains a very high note and stops; in a letter, the composer explained that this was a direct transcription of the ringing he actually heard in his ears.
- The ending, in which the music sinks back down after this high note and closes quietly, is often read as a portrait of his resignation after losing his hearing.
VII. The final years · 1879–1884 (age 55–60)
(Libuše) Libuše, his opera about the legendary queen of Prague from Czech mythology, was completed in 1872 but held back until 1881, when it was finally premiered to mark the opening of the National Theatre in Prague. The composer, by then completely deaf, could not hear that moment of glory. (Decline) As the 1880s set in, his headaches, dizziness and failing memory grew worse. His family had to watch as he gradually lost his speech and fell into confusion. (The forest) In his last years he spent much of his time at the gamekeeper's lodge in the forest of Jabkenice, where his daughter Žofie lived with her family. The stillness of the forest left its trace on Blaník, the final piece of Má vlast. (Death) In early 1884 his mind collapsed rapidly, and he was admitted to Kateřinky, the asylum in Prague, where he died that May. Crowds of Czechs gathered at his funeral to bid farewell to the father of their national music.
A festival tableau about Prague's legendary queen, premiered at the opening of the National Theatre when he was already completely deaf.
- The overture opens with a festive fanfare that conveys the prophetic majesty of the legendary queen, and it has since been played often as ceremonial music at Czech state occasions.
- At the close of Act III, as Libuše prophesies the future of Bohemia, the melody unfolds at a stately, slow pace, sounding less like opera than like a solemn rite.
- The character of the music comes into sharper focus if you keep in mind that the composer called the work not an 'opera' but a 'festival tableau,' and wished it to be staged only on national holidays rather than in the ordinary repertory.
Lesser-known stories
As was common in middle-class Bohemian households, he spoke mainly German at home as a child, and only as an adult did he deliberately set about relearning Czech. That the composer who became the very symbol of Czech national opera could not speak Czech fluently as a young man was a fact seldom mentioned by later writers who held him up as a national hero. The ringing in his ears that tormented him from 1874 onward was no mere metaphor; he is said to have actually heard it as a sound of a specific pitch. In his own notes on the score of String Quartet No. 1, he stated that the high note held by the first violin in the final movement transcribes the exact pitch of the tinnitus he heard. Leaving so personal a confession so concretely in a score was rare for its time. The Bartered Bride, now called the national opera of the Czech people, was a failure at its premiere in 1866. Over the following years Smetana revised it several times, adding an act and dances until it reached its present form. At the same time, some nationalist critics attacked him as 'German' for adopting the idioms of Liszt and Wagner. That the father of Czech national music was, in his lifetime, beset by such contradictory attacks from within the nationalist camp itself is a fact often obscured by his mythologized image. Medical historians have long debated the cause of his mental and physical decline in his final years. Drawing on the records of the Kateřinky asylum and the opinions of contemporary physicians, some studies have suggested the possibility of late-stage syphilis, a subject scholars began to approach cautiously only long after his death. During his lifetime, and for some time afterward, when he was revered as a hero of the Czech nation, the very discussion was taboo.
Glossary 📚🔎
Symphonic poem
(Literally) Gyohyangsi (交響詩), 'symphony poem,' denotes a piece played by an orchestra like a symphony, but which paints a single story or landscape the way a short poem does. (In music) An orchestral work that seeks to depict a particular plot, legend, landscape or character through music alone. Liszt first created the form, and it was a favorite means of portraying rivers and legends, as in Smetana's Má vlast. It is much like listening only to the narration, without the picture book, and imagining the scenes.
Program music
(Literally) Pyojeeumak (標題音樂), 'title music,' means music that carries a title or description (pyoje, 'heading') in order to convey specific content. Its opposite is absolute music, whose title holds no story at all. (In music) Music written so that the title or description the composer gives it calls to mind a particular scene, emotion or story. Like the speech bubbles in a comic book, the explanation attached from outside the music tells the listener which way to hear the piece.
Furiant
(Literally) The name is said to come from a Czech word meaning 'a haughty person' or 'a hasty person,' and it captures the dance's headlong, driving character. (In music) A rhythm rooted in Czech folk dance, in which duple and triple time alternate and the accents shift unpredictably. It feels much like a clapping game where you keep changing the beat to trip up your partner.
Overture
(Literally) Seogok (序曲), 'opening piece,' means 'a piece placed first in order': an introductory piece played before the main work begins. (In music) Played before the curtain rises on an opera or stage work, it gathers the audience's attention and previews the themes to come. It serves much the same purpose as the trailers shown before a film.
National school
(Literally) Minjogakpa (民族樂派), 'national music school,' means a school of composers who write on the basis of their nation's own musical idiom. (In music) A movement across Europe in the late 19th century that sought to establish a distinct musical identity by bringing a country's folk songs, dances and legends into its works. Smetana and Dvořák led this current in Czech music. Just as children in a school cafeteria might each bring a dish from home to show off, composers in each country proudly put forward their own nation's musical color.
String quartet
(Literally) Hyeonak (絃樂) means instruments with strings, and sajungju (四重奏) means four people playing together. (In music) A chamber ensemble of two violins, one viola and one cello, or a piece written for that ensemble. Four players forming a team and trading phrases as if in conversation is much like four people passing a ball back and forth in a tight space.