It’s interesting how many of the great composers push others out of the limelight, isn’t it? If not for Antonin Dvorak, likely the greatest of Czech composers, the music of Bedrich Smetana might be better known today. Dvorak’s work is always more refined and frequently touched by genius, where Smetana’s is earthier, maybe just a bit less memorably melodic, and occasionally awkward. That doesn’t make it bad, though–not by a longshot. Here is one of the tone poems from Smetana’s symphonic cycle Ma Vlast (My Country), “From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields.”
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I knew a girl in junior high with the last name Smetana, which may be why I have a couple albums of his to this day.