It’s music of international stature. Smetana’s orchestral work Vltava (Moldau) from the cycle Má vlast (My fatherland) is played by orchestras throughout the world and much loved by audiences. Now this famous work is available in an authoritative edition reflecting the latest research.

Vltava is the best known of Smetana’s orchestral works, played more frequently today than the five other pieces in the cycle Má vlast (My fatherland).  The fact that the composer wrote it in 1874, immediately after experiencing the cruel blow of deafness, demonstrates that it was a work that he particularly wanted to write; perhaps he had been planning this work, along with its companion piece, Vyšehrad, for some time.

Thoughts of writing an orchestral cycle to celebrate his native country had occupied Smetana in the first half of the 1870s, when he completed his festive opera Libussa on a subject from Czech mythology. But in mid-1873 the form of the cycle was still not clearly established, and the individual subjects only gradually became clear in the composer’s mind, with the exception of the first two pieces, Vyšehrad and Vltava, which had a firm place right from the beginning. Sketches by Smetana from 1874-1875, rediscovered in 1983, reveal that both symphonic poems were composed almost in parallel. He composed Vyšehrad between the end of September and 18 November 1874, and on 20 November began working on Vltava which he completed after just nineteen days. The following year he composed two further symphonic poems, Šárka and Z českých luhů a hájů (From Bohemian fields and groves), quickly making his own four-hand piano arrangements of all four pieces. He returned to the cycle in 1878-1879, when he completed Tábor and Blaník.

The music of Vltava was known to the public both in the four-hand piano arrangement and from concert performances before it was published. The successful premiere took place on 4 April 1875 at the Žofín in Prague; beyond Austro-Hungary it was first performed, together with Vyšehrad, in Chemnitz in 1878, thanks to Prague-born Hans Sitt.

The printed edition of Vltava was only published in 1879 when Smetana entered into a contract with the publisher F. A. Urbánek. The cycle first acquired its final title of Má vlast (My fatherland) at this time. Vltava was published together with Vyšehrad in December 1879 in the composer’s version for piano four hands, and in the first half of 1880 the full score and orchestral parts were issued, which Smetana had corrected himself. 

Since then the work has been published in new editions many times, most recently in 1966 by Artia, Prague. The purpose of Bärenreiter’s new edition is to take a careful look at Smetana’s very detailed markings and remove the errors that have crept into previous scores. The present edition is based on the autograph manuscript, with reference made to the Urbánek edition of 1880 and the four-hand version arranged by Smetana himself.  Smetana’s autograph score, held by the Smetana Museum, Prague, is exceedingly clear, written in purple ink with very close attention to nuances of every kind. The composer was very precise in the distribution of various marks of accentuation – staccato, tenuto, marcato – sometimes using a combination of more than one. The phrasing and expression of every bar is entered with great care. The printed score of 1880 introduced a few errors which have been corrected in the new edition, which will provide a reliable resource for conductors and orchestras that wish to include Smetana’s work in a correct and reliable version.

Hugh Macdonald / Olga Mojžíšová
(from [t]akte 1/2014)