looks upon his work as the representative art of his nation and discovers something in it that we call national.
It is astonishing how Smetana is comparable in some of the facts of his life to the great master Beethoven. He lost his hearing at the time of his most intensive period of creation, but his genius over came his cruel affliction, and because the triumph was spiritual, gave us works of great happiness and joy.
As a child of five Smetana was already composing and playing the violin. As a poor student he returned one evening from a concert of chamber music and wrote down a string quartet he had heard, because he could not buy a copy of it. When he was deaf and persecuted by the malignity of his enemies, when fate knocked on his door with iron hand robbing him of his wife and child, his genius created works before which we stand in dumb admiration.
Smetana’s inventive power was never exhausted; he was often compared with Mozart because of his melodies which are always fresh and very impressive. Speaking of the “Bartered Bride” the author of the “Opera” (Volume IX, of the Art of Music) says: “National melodies and national rhythms furnish the chief stock of the work. Thus the overture is a masterly setting of folk-song material in fugal style”. On the contrary there is no trace of Czech folk-melodies in the whole opera.
Smetana never accomodated his artistic principles to the taste of the public; he was too serious an artist to make a work catching at once the popular fancy. Almost every work[1] except the Bartered Bride, had to fight against the wall of misunderstanding and was victorious only after many years of dispute because of its originality and vitality. A real genius, Smetana was much ahead of his time.
A cycle of six symphonic poems called “My Fatherland” from the master’s last period are without equal in the Czech literature of music. The subjects are drawn partly from Bohemian history (Vyšehrad, Šárka, Tábor, Blaník) and partly from Nature (Vltava—the principal river of Bohemia—and “From Bohemian Woods and Meadows”).
As a composer for piano Smetana left a considerable number of pieces, mainly “Polkas” which he idealized in a very poetic form. His best known piano piece is the Concert Etude “By the Seashore”. Two cycles, of which the first bears the title “Réves”, and the other “Bohemian Dances,” especially deserve the attention of pianists. Smetana was often a guest of Liszt who esteemed him a great artist. After Liszt had been informed of Smetana’s death, tears sprang to his eyes and he said: “We lost a genius.”
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) the best known Czech composer, was the son of a village butcher. From an early age his only passion was music. In spite of many life troubles and sufferings, he did not cease to study and work; to his praise it has to be said that his high position in music is chiefly due to his unparalleled diligence. The number of Dvořák’s works is huge, covering almost all forms of music. His fame began with the “Slavic Dances”, a cycle of 16 numbers brilliantly instrumented. From his five symphonies the last “From the New World” was composed while Dvořák was teacher of composition at the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892). To this American period belongs the string quartet, op. 96, and the beautiful cycle of “The Biblical Songs”, op. 99, Dvořák’s last vocal opus.
He who wishes to have a clear idea of Dvořák’s genius ought to hear and study the wonderful symphonic poems from the last period of creation on the themes of Bohemian legends and fairy tales. In his operas, of which the best is “Rusalka”, Dvořák exhibits a wonderful gift of invention and instrumentation. Nevertheless those works are handicapped by a lack of dramatic consciousness and cannot be compared with Smetana’s dramatic works.
Zdenko Fibich (1850–1900) is the creator of the modern melodrama (recitations with music.) It was the Czech composer George Benda (1772–1795) who after Rousseau’s experiments brought this curious form to life. His technique was different from that of the modern writers of this form; the music was never performed simultaneously with the recitation, being merely an inter lude between the short sections of the poem (Ariadne on the Naxos and Medea). A
- ↑ Dalibor (1868) of which Smetana was very proud, relates a Bohemian folk legend about a Knight Dalibor, who was held prisoner at the castle in Prague. He begged his jailor for a violin to lighten the heavy hours of his captivity. It is said that he played with such a wondrous skill that the people came from far and wide to stand outside the prison walls and listen to the charming music. Libuše (1881) is the climax of the master’s creation.
