most elegant and fashionable dancing salons and private balls of Paris. From France it spread over all Europe, and even through North America. Celebrated composers wrote new tunes to it.” (C. Engel: The Literature of National Music.)
Besides the Polka there is another Czech folk-dance of a like character, the “Furiant”, which Dvořák introduced in new form in his First Symphony instead of the usual Scherzo. The most brilliant examples of the Polka and Furiant are in Smetana’s opera “The Bartered Bride.”
In the first half of the last century the nations of Europe were particularly interested in their folk art.
An appeal was made to scientists, writers, and musicians encouraging them to collect and preserve folk-art; it resulted in great success. Countless collections of folk-art treasures together with essays and studies on this subject exhibited the beauty, simplicity and spontaneity of the art of the common people. No wonder that the value of this branch of musical art was overestimated and led to an error; folk-art was confused with nationality in art. The music in Bohemia, where the harvest of folk-song material was especially rich, was also led astray. The principle was inculcated that “national music” be based upon folk-music; imitation of folk-poetry and folk-melodies was approved as real national art. It is astonishing how long this principle violating the natural law of progress endured. All the compositions and names of authors of this feverish would-be-national period belong to history. They live no more, being but poor imitations. There is no room in this brief article for mention of their names or works. Into the artificial edifice without solid foundations erected by this group of artists struck a thunderbolt of genius in the person of Smetana who tore down their flimsy structure and exposed their false theories.
Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) was the founder of a style which is now called “Czech National Music.” But why Czech music or Slovak music or Czechoslovak music? Does there exist any nationality in music?
Every nation with its mother tongue, its peculiar customs, its distinct mode of life, differs more or less in form of culture from all other nations. The differences of geo graphical position, racial inclinations and inborn temper, influence all departments of life—ven Art, and the man of art is a son of his nation; his work expresses his inner life; in it are mirrored his struggles, in it are clearly defined his philosophical views of life. The wonderful gifted soul of an artist has its deep roots in the life of his people, his work springs from the soil of his nation.
And as a man cannot escape from his own people and his own time, so he cannot escape from all people and all time. The greater the artist, the more he expresses the life of all mankind, the more he be comes the pride of his nation; the world
