Before we dive into the masterpiece—the symphonic poem “Vltava” (in German, “Die Moldau”)—there is the story behind one of the most celebrated Czech composers.
If you had told Bedrich Smetana in 1874 that he would become perhaps the most beloved of all Czech composers, he would have been hard-pressed to believe it. Although he had succeeded the decade prior, winning a competition with his opera “The Brandenburgers in Bohemia,” discontent was brewing. Critics attacked the rising innovative composer. Biographer John Clapham wrote of the harsh attacks, saying one reviewer claimed Smetana’s “Czech opera sickens to death at least once annually.”
