Bedřich Smetana

Litomyšl-born, Bedřich Smetana studied with Josef Proksch and came back from several years in Gothenburg — where he conducted, taught and wrote symphonic poems under Liszt's influence — to Prague. His operas include The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, Dalibor, Libuše, The Two Widows and The Bartered Bride. Má vlast, six symphonic poems completed in 1879, draws on Czech landscapes, legends and history, including the Vltava, Vyšehrad and a Hussite chorale. The First String Quartet is subtitled From My Life and follows its own programme movement by movement. He died in 1884; the Prague Spring festival traditionally opens on the anniversary of his death, with Má vlast. He gave his first public performance in 1830, at six, and came to Prague in 1839, where Liszt's recitals settled him on music; the uprising of 1848 drew him in briefly and produced his first nationalist pieces. The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride were both staged at the Provisional Theatre in 1866, the year he took up the conductorship, which he left in 1874 after losing his hearing. He moved to Jabkenice, the home of his daughter Zofie, where The Kiss, The Secret and The Devil's Wall were written; Adolf Cech conducted the first complete Ma vlast on 5 November 1882.