Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana (2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer. He is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast. His music became closely identified with his country’s aspirations to independent statehood. He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music.
About Bedřich Smetana in brief
Bedřich Smetana (2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer. He is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast. His music became closely identified with his country’s aspirations to independent statehood. He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. A mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum and subsequent death. He was the third child and first son of František SmetANA and his third wife Barbora Lynková. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. He left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged him to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas were premiered at Prague’s new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. By the end of 1874, he had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life.
His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a few of his works are in the international repertory. Most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer, and most foreign commentators prefer to refer to him as the “Father of Czech Music” He is buried in Jind�ich, south of Bohemia, near the town of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic. He died of a heart attack at the age of 63. He had a son, Frantižek, who died in 1883, and a daughter, Barbori, who married the composer’s son, Ján Kostner, in 1885. He also had a daughter-in-law, Barbora Lynková, with whom he had one son, František Smetana, and one daughter, Katerina, who later died in a car accident. His last work, a symphony, was written in 1887, and he died in Prague in 1891, aged 80. His works are now in the collections of the Czech Academy of Music, Prague, and the Czech National Museum, where they are on display in a special exhibition of his work. His widow, Brigid, is also a well-known composer, having written several operas and several symphonies, including one of the most famous of all, Mávlast, which is known as “Vltava” (The Vltava poem)
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