Bedřich Smetana

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(b Litomyšl, 2 March 1824; d Prague, 12 May 1884). Czech composer. He took music lessons from his father, a keen violinist, and from several local teachers. In his teens he attended the Academic Gymnasium in Prague, but neglected school work to attend concerts (including some by Liszt, with whom he became friendly) and to write string quartets for friends, until his father sent him to the Premonstratensian Gymnasium at Plzeň. At first he earned a precarious living as a teacher in Prague until, in January 1884, he was appointed resident piano teacher to Count Leopold Thun's family, which provided him with the means to study harmony, counterpoint and composition with Josef Proksch. When he failed in an attempt to launch a career as a concert pianist in 1847, Smetana decided to found a school of music in Prague. This showed little profit, but he was able to earn something by teaching privately and by playing regularly to the deposed Emperor Ferdinand, and in 1849 he was able to marry Kateřina Kolářová, whom he had known since his Plzeň days.

Smetana's financial situation improved little in the years that followed, and political uncertainty and domestic tragedy only added to his unrest: three of his four daughters died between 1854 and 1856. When he heard there was an opening for a piano teacher at Göteborg he jumped at the chance. In Sweden his prospects improved, and he was in demand as a pianist, teacher and conductor. Inspired by Liszt's example, he composed his first symphonic poems. His wife's health forced him to return to Bohemia with her in 1859, but she died at Dresden on the way home. After two further summers in Göteborg, between which he found a second wife in Bettina Ferdinandová, Smetana felt the need to return permanently to Prague in order to play an active role in the reawakening of Czech culture that followed the Austrian defeat by Napoleon III at Magenta and Soferino.

He was disappointed to find himself no more successful in Prague than he had been before. It was not until his first opera, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, was enthusiastically received in January 1866 that his prospects there improved. His second, The Bartered Bride, was speedily put into production and soon found favour, though (as with his other operas) foreign performances long remained rarities. As principal conductor of the Provisional Theatre, 1866-74, Smetana added 42 operas to the repertory, including his own Dalibor (on a heroic national theme) and The Two Widows. Dalibor and Libuše (performed at the opening of the National Theatre in Prague in 1881) are Smetana's two most nationalistic operas; when completing the latter he also planned a vast orchestral monument to his nation which became the cycle of symphonic poems entitled Má vlast (‘My fatherland’), including the evocative and stirring Vltava, a picture of the river that flows through Prague.

In 1874 there appeared the first signs of the syphilis that was to result in Smetana's deafness. The String Quartet From my Life (1876) suggests in its last movement the piercing whistling that haunted his every evening, making work almost impossible. He somehow managed to complete two more operas, a second string quartet and several other works, but by 1883 his mental equilibrium was seriously disturbed. In April 1884 he was taken to the Prague lunatic asylum, where he died the following month.

Smetana was the first major nationalist composer of Bohemia. He gave his people a new musical identity and self-confidence by his technical assurance and originality in handling national subjects. In his operas and symphonic poems he drew on his country's legends, history, characters, scenery and ideas, presenting them with a freshness and colour which owe little to indigenous folksong but much to a highly original and essentially dramatic musical style.

works:
Operas

• The Brandenburgers in Bohemia (1866)
• The Bartered Bride (1866 rev. 1870)
• Dalibor (1868)
• Libuše (1872, perf. 1881)
• The Two Widows (1874)
• The Kiss (1876)
• The Secret (1878)
• The Devil's Wall (1882)

Orchestral music

• Jubel-Ouvertüre (1849, rev. 1883)
• Triumph-Symphonie (1854, rev. 1881)
• Má vlast: Vysehrad (c 1872-4), Vltava (1874), Šárka (1875), From Bohemia's Woods and Fields (1875), Tábor (1878), Blańik (1879)

Other works

• Pf Trio, g (1855, rev. 1857)
• Str Qt no.1, e, ‘From my Life’ (1876)
• Str Qt no.2, d (1883)
• From the Homeland, Vn, pf (1880)
• songs, choral works, pf music

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The Czech composer Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), founder of Bohemian national music, is most known for his symphonic poems and operas. His music combines a strong symphonic technique with melodic and rhythmic ideas derived from Bohemian folk traditions.

Born into a large family in the small town of Leitomischel, Bedřich Smetana showed exceptional musical talent as a child, performing on the violin and piano at the age of 5 and writing his first compositions at 8. Despite his father's opposition to his musical training, he quickly gained a reputation as a pianist through his performances of the works of Franz Liszt. After moving to Prague in 1844, Smetana became music teacher to the family of the wealthy Count Thun but left after 4 years. With the help of Liszt, Smetana founded his own piano school.

In 1856 Smetana accepted a position as conductor of the Philharmonic Society of Göteborg, Sweden. While there he wrote his first important symphonic poems, including Wallenstein's Camp (1859) after Friedrich von Schiller's great dramatic trilogy. During this time, events were changing in Bohemia. Austria, weakened from futile attempts to maintain control over Italy, granted Bohemia political autonomy in 1860, which elicited strong national feelings from the Bohemians. The following year Smetana returned to Prague to become a leader in the new movement, the first substantial result of which was the establishment in 1862 of a theater where opera and drama could be presented in the Czech language.

Smetana's first major operatic success, The Bartered Bride (1866), instantly raised him to the status of Bohemia's leading composer and won for him international success as well as the position as first conductor of the Prague theater. The opera, a humorous tale of peasant life, is full of dance sequences based on Bohemian folk rhythms. The overture, polka, and furiant are often heard in concert. His next opera, Dalibor (1868), was more serious, with the hero conceived as a symbol of the Czech soul. Smetana's symphonic orchestration upset some critics, who accused him of imitating Richard Wagner, and throughout his life his serious operas were attacked by many who preferred his lighter works. Today Dalibor is considered one of the greatest Czech operas, although it is virtually unknown outside its own country.

Eventually Smetana developed a nervous disorder, continually hearing noises in his head and at times suffering memory lapses. In 1874 he was forced to resign from his conducting position, and at the end of that year he became permanently deaf. From 1874 to 1879 he occupied himself with the composition of a cycle of six symphonic poems titled My Country, of which the best-known are The Moldau (1874) and From Bohemia's Meadows and Forests (1875). In 1876 he completed his most important chamber work, the string quartet From My Life. This composition is unique in the repertoire because of its autobiographical subject matter, reflected in the harrowing screech in the high violin that interupts the dance in the last movement, representing Smetana's own physical disability. In the spring of 1884 he was committed to a mental institution, where he died a few months later.

Further Reading

Two important biographies of Smetana are Liam Nolan and Joseph Bernard Hutton, The Life of Smetana: The Pain and the Glory (1968), and Brian Large, Smetana (1970), the last of which contains musical analysis as well as biographical material. For general background see Donald Jay Grout, A History of Western Music (1960), and Kenneth B. Klaus, The Romantic Period in Music (1970).

Additional Sources

Large, Brian, Smetana, New York: Da Capo Press, 1985. Maly, Miloslav, Bedřich Smetana, Prague: Orbis, 1976.

• Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
• Country: Czechoslovakia
• Born: March 02, 1824 in Leitomischl, Czech Republic
• Died: May 12, 1884 in Prague, Czech Republic
• Genres: Chamber Music, Keyboard Music, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Orchestral Music

Biography

Bedrich Smetana was one of the great composers of his country's history and one of the leaders of the movement toward musical nationalism. His father was a violin teacher who gave Bedrich his first lessons and referred him to keyboard, harmony, and composition lessons when the boy requested them. His father tried to get Bedrich to apply himself in academics, but Bedrich was too focused on music to be a good student.

Bedrich Kittl, director of the Prague Conservatory, in 1844 found Smetana a job as a music teacher to the family of Count Leopold Thun while continuing music studies. He remained with the count for three and a half years, but he quit to undertake a concert tour, which turned out to be a financial failure.

Franz Liszt aided Smetana in finding a publisher for some early piano music and in 1848, Smetana founded a successful piano school.

Although he established a strong local reputation as a pianist, his piano compositions (mostly lighter works) did not earn him any special distinction as a composer.

In 1860, the Austro-Hungarian Empire granted internal political autonomy to Bohemia. A movement began to search for a genuine Czech voice in arts, including the establishment of a national theater. In 1862-1863, Smetana composed The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, his first opera, which was a success at its premiere on January 5, 1866. His next opera was Prodaná nevesta (The Bartered Bride), his most famous and enduring opera today, but a failure when it premiered on May 30, 1866.

In 1866, Smetana became conductor of the Provisional Theater, re-forming its administration and attempting to raise standards. His next opera, Dalibor (1871), was criticized for its Wagnerian elements. He had also written Libuse, but could find no producer. But in 1874, he had a large success with a light, popular opera, The Two Widows.

However, a severe whistling in the ears (graphically depicted in his autobiographical string quartet From My Life) led to deafness by the end of that year, symptoms of tertiary syphilis. He continued to compose and wrote his orchestral masterpiece Má Vlast (My Country) from 1874 to 1879. Three more operas were premiered successfully, including Libuse, but the last was The Devil's Wall (1882). By now, Smetana was seriously ill. The brain damage from syphilis led to madness, and he was confined to an asylum where he died. National mourning was proclaimed and he was given a burial at the Vyshehrad, one of the national sites depicted in Má Vlast. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide