Má vlast

Smetana, Bed_ich

album cover

A River, Immortalized in Music

Lots of pieces attempt to describe the majesty of water, but most are somewhat generic—their undulations could describe any vast ocean or raging river. Not so with the detailed sketch "Vltava," the best-known section of this six-part poem for orchestra. Czech composer Bedřich Smetana's intention was to celebrate specific traits of the Moldau River, a fixture of daily life in Prague. Starting from trickling headwaters well north of the city, he uses different musical devices to evoke the path of the river: Early on the music is distinguished by furtive little splashes of melody, the "talk" of small creeks and brooks. As the river gathers force, the melodies lengthen, becoming more stately. By the time the segment ends, you feel the reverence Smetana (1824–1884) felt watching the wide river flow through his city.

The other sections offer glimpses of life in Prague—Má vlast is often mentioned as an example of the "nationalistic" music fashionable during Smetana's time, in which composers strove to immortalize the unique character traits of their homelands. The river scenes do this in consistently stirring ways, even if, ironically, the primary "Vltava" theme was borrowed from the Swedish folk song "Ack Värmeland, du sköna." Meanwhile elsewhere in the piece, Smetana seems to be torn between writing love letters to his city and cranking out military-style marches. This version features the Czech Philharmonic, whose membership know the river well. Recorded at the Prague Spring festival in 1990 shortly after the Velvet Revolution, it was guided by conductor Rafael Kubelík. Without doing too much flag-waving, Kubelík goes for big swells of feeling rather than distantly picturesque shades, allowing the performance to bubble over with the pride of a hometown experiencing profound renewal.

Genre: Classical
Released: 1990, Supraphon
Key Tracks: "Vltava/The Moldau."
Another Interpretation: Czech Philharmonic (Václav Talich, cond.).
F.Y.I.: During the years he spent writing and scoring Má vlast, Smetana completely lost his hearing.
Next Stop: Modest Mussorgsky/Maurice Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition
Book Pages: 714–715