Vltava (The Moldau)

Smetana composed Vltava between 20 November and 8 December 1874, weeks after deafness had ended his career as a conductor. It is the second poem of Má vlast and was the first to be heard, at a Prague concert on 4 April 1875. The music follows the river from two springs in the Bohemian forest through a hunt, a village wedding, a moonlit dance of water nymphs and the rapids of St John, to the point where it passes the rock of Vyšehrad and leaves the city. The melody Smetana gave the river had been circulating across Europe for centuries.