Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) is regarded as the father of Czech national music, the first great composer to give the Czech lands a musical voice of their own. Working at a time of rising Czech national consciousness under Austrian rule, he sought to create a distinctly Czech art music, drawing on the rhythms, dances and legends of his homeland. His comic opera The Bartered Bride became a national institution, and his cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast (‘My Homeland’) a patriotic touchstone. Like Beethoven, Smetana suffered the cruellest fate for a musician: he went completely deaf in 1874, and composed much of his greatest music, including the most famous parts of Má vlast, hearing it only in his imagination. His final years were darkened by deafness and mental illness, but he had already secured his place as the founding figure of Czech music, a direct inspiration to Dvořák and those who followed.