Vltava, Bedrich Smetana - A Listening Guide

Vltava (The Moldau)
Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884)

    It is sometimes interesting to consider the development of a composer’s music in relation to the events occurring in his life.  The music of Mozart’s and Haydn’s final years was marked by an increasingly intense and emotional characteristic in contrast to the otherwise reserved Classical style.  Beethoven’s work became increasingly revolutionary as his deafness increased.  For each of these composers, as their lives neared their end or they were faced with mounting physical challenges, their music became more complex and beautiful.  Czech composer Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) can be considered in the same light.

    Like Beethoven, Smetana became deaf in 1874 at the age of 50, first in his right ear then in his left.  While he was already a celebrated composer by this time, having already enjoyed great success in both Prague and abroad, his most enduring piece was still to come.

    He was mired in controversy at the time.  After premiering his opera, The Bartered Bride, Smetana was celebrated as a national treasure.  He had made the acquaintance of Frantisek Pivoda, a Moravian voice teacher who sat on a committee with Smetana.  After the two had a falling-out, Pivoda began a public crusade in the papers to destroy Smetana's reputation.  He claimed that Smetana was straying from his Czech heritage after The Bartered Bride and accused him of becoming too Wagnerian.

    Pivoda even went as far as to begin championing other young Czech composers to supplant Smetana as Czech's favorite musical son.  His first protege, Vilem Blodek, showed some promise, but died early in a lunatic asylum while composing his second opera.  In an ironic twist to the story, the widow of the composer chosen to replace Smetana in the hearts and minds of the Czech people later approached Smetana and asked him to complete the opera.

    Pivoda's next vessel enjoyed greater success than the first - Antonin Dvorak.  Dvorak was a prodigious talent who served to further divide the Czech cultural community.  The rift that Pivoda had rent was expanded by Dvorak's success.

    The Czech artistic community was divided into two camps.  Smetana's supporters saw his musical development as progress while his detractors considered it tantamount to cultural treason.  While Smetana tried to remain distant from the battle, he was, nonetheless, hurt by the accusations and controversy, always believing he remained faithful to his homeland.

    In 1875 he premiered the first two movements of his symphonic poem, Ma Vlast, translated as “My Fatherland.”  The piece, which was ultimately comprised of six movements, was intended to celebrate Czech national heritage by capturing the natural beauty, culture, and traditions of the Czech people in music.  The second movement, Vltava, more popularly known by its German name Die Moldau, depicts the Vltava River, which runs through the heart of the Czech Republic.  Smetana himself wrote a program to describe the settings of the piece:

The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St. John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Labe (or Elbe, in German).

    Smetana also inserted titles of the various sections of the piece in the score to aid in interpretation (see Figure 1.3 for an interpretive graphic).  Very few examples of programmatic music so beautifully capture the spirit of its subject, or conjure up such vivid imagery, as Vltava.  The sections as marked in the score, along with their translations, are:

• Die beiden Quellen der Moldau (The two sources of the Moldau)
• Waldjagd (Forest Hunt)
• Bauernhochzeit (Peasant Wedding)
• Mondschein; Nymphenreigen (Moonshine,Nymph’s Round Dance)
• St. Johann - Stromschnellen (St. John’s Rapids)
• Die Moldau in ihrer ganzen Breite (The Moldau at its widest)
• Vysehrad Motiv (Aus der I. symph. Dichtung) (The Vysehrad Theme, of symphonic literature)

    The piece begins with solo flute playing a figure that represents the first of the Moldau’s sources.  In the third measure, that solo flute is joined by a second flute, representing the second source, in a fluid melodic line that will pervade the piece and represent the river’s current (see Figure 1.1).

 

Figure 1.1

    The flute is eventually joined by the clarinets and violas as the current grows before the river is in full swell and the current is carried forward in the cellos and violas.  It is at this point that the main river theme enters in the violins, an adaptation of an Italian Renaissance folk tune and the melody which later became the State of Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah (see Figure 1.2). 

 

Figure 1.2

    Smetana’s treatment of this theme, both in the opening section and throughout the piece is remarkable.  Much in the same way Mendelssohn uses the ascending and descending contours of the musical line to evoke water imagery in Fingal’s Cave, Smetana accomplishes the sensation of riding on water in much the same way.  Smetana’s use of dynamic contour also emphasizes that sensation, especially heightened by his use of sforzandos and accents at the top of the melodic line (see Figure 1.2).

    Whenever I listen to Vltava, I imagine myself on a raft being carried by the current as I observe various scenes along the riverside unfold as I float past.  While it can be useful to study a score to identify the varying sections of a piece of music, this is one piece where the ear serves better than the eye.  With Smetana’s score markings and his own words as a guide, it is easy to identify the various sections he marked in the score.  I would encourage you to let your imagination be your guide as you listen to the music and enjoy the images Smetana conjures in your mind.

    Smetana’s nationalistic music has made him a Czech national treasure and none of his pieces captures the Czech spirit as aptly as Vltava.  Listening to it is a journey of the imagination through the heartland of the Czech Republic, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

Figure 1.3 (click to enlarge)

Sources for Further Information:

On Vltava River:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vltava

On Bedrich Smetana:

• The Pain and the Glory, Nolan, Lian and Hutton, J. Bernard (George G. Harap & Co. Ltd., 1968) (a literary dramatization of Smetana's life)
• Smetana, Clapham, John (Octagon Books, 1972) 
• Smetana, Large, Brian (Praeger Publishers, 1970)
• The Smetana-Pivoda Controversy, John Clapham, Music & Letters, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 353-364 (Oct., 1971)
• Smetana:  A Century After, John Clapham, The Musical Times, vol. 125 no. 1694, pp. 201-205 (Apr., 1984)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed%C5%99ich_Smetana
• http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/composer/smetana.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1_vlast