Tag: The Moldau

TBT^4: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau”

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It’s been several years now since I last taught the fun but short-lived Pre-AP Music Appreciation course that spawned some of these pieces highlighting classical and Romantic musical works, but I still love the musical selections dearly. Bedřich Smetana’s The Moldau still captures my imagination, and I still have not composed anything that comes remotely close to its beauty and genius.

Nevertheless, I routinely cite Smetana as an influence, especially when uploading my pieces to CD Baby for digital distribution.  He almost always gets a mention in the “artists like” categories I fill out for each release.  Hopefully he’s not spinning in his grave at the thought of that.

With that, here is 11 January 2024’s “TBT^2: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s ‘The Moldau'”:

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TBT^2: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

One of my favorite pieces of the Romantic period is Bedřich Smetana’s The Moldau, which depicts a musical cruise down the titular river.  I’m not sure why I always reblog about it in January—the piece has a much more springtime feel—but here we are.

I’ve been composing more and more programmatic and Impressionistic music lately, and nothing I’ve written lives up to what Smetana achieves in this piece.

But I said it all best back in 2021—and reblogged it in 2022.

With that, here is 13 January 2022’s “TBT: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s ‘The Moldau’“:

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The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Last Friday I wrote of the beauty and power—the sheer joy—of Romantic music, a topic I’ve covered once before on this blog.  In writing last week’s post, I noted briefly that Romantic music is nationalistic, which was certainly true in a number of cases.

Europe following the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars was a hotbed of political activity and nationalist sentiment.  The Congress of Vienna (1815) redrew the map of Central Europe, reducing the hundreds of German principalities, bishoprics, duchies, baronies, and the rest into about a dozen political units, hoping these larger Germanic kingdoms would serve as a bulwark against future French aggression.  They did, and more—under the steady Realpolitik of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia gradually grew to unite these new lands into the Second Reich—a unified Germany.

Meanwhile, smaller nations chafed under Austrian or French influence.  Bohemia—now part of the Czech Republic—fought against Austrian political rule and the German language that came with it.  Bohemians championed the revival of their native Czech language, and began revisiting Czech folklore and music as the resting place of the national spirit.

This process was not unique to Bohemia or the Czechs, but today’s featured piece, Czech composer Bedřich Smetana‘s The Moldau, is a prime of example of how nationalist musical ideas can capture beautifully a sense of a place, while also transcending national identity and borders.

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