Vltava and other episodes from ‘Má vlast’

Program notes

About the Work

Má vlast (‘My Homeland’) is Smetana’s supreme patriotic statement: a cycle of six symphonic poems, composed between 1874 and 1879, celebrating the landscapes, legends and history of Bohemia. Astonishingly, Smetana wrote almost all of the cycle after he had gone deaf in 1874 (only the opening Vyšehrad was largely finished before), hearing the music only in his inner ear. Tonight’s programme presents episodes from the cycle and ends with its most beloved movement, Vltava.

Vltava (known in German and English as ‘The Moldau’) traces the course of Bohemia’s great river, from two small mountain springs, through forests and meadows where a peasant wedding is in progress, past water-nymphs dancing in the moonlight, through the wild St John’s Rapids, and finally as a broad, majestic stream flowing past the ancient castle of Vyšehrad and through Prague. Its sweeping main melody, one of the most famous tunes in all music, has become an unofficial Czech anthem. The other episodes of Má vlast extend the portrait: the legendary fortress of Vyšehrad, the warrior-maiden Šárka, the sunlit countryside of Bohemia’s woods and fields. Conducted by a great Central-European musician steeped in this tradition, it makes a glowing, patriotic close to an evening of music rooted in place and people.

What to Listen For

Vltava is a musical journey down a river, so follow the water. Listen at the start for two intertwining flute and clarinet lines, the two little springs that form the river’s source, which gradually swell as more instruments join and the stream grows. Then the great river theme arrives: a broad, flowing, slightly melancholy melody in the strings that recurs throughout, carrying us downstream.

Along the way, listen for the vivid scenes Smetana paints: hunting horns in the forest; a rustic peasant wedding (a village polka); a magical, shimmering night scene with moonlit water-nymphs (hushed strings, harp and high woodwind); and the churning turbulence of the St John’s Rapids, where the orchestra roars and crashes. Finally the river broadens into a majestic major-key statement of the main theme as it flows through Prague, with a grand quotation of the noble ‘Vyšehrad’ castle motif before it sweeps away into the distance. In the further episodes from Má vlast, listen for the same vivid storytelling, Smetana conjuring his beloved homeland entirely from memory and imagination.