The most famous movement of Ma Vlast is The Moldau. All six movements were composed and originally performed separately before being joined as a suite. The Moldau is the one I had to study back in college, and I suspect, from my web-surfing, it's still a popular Music Appreciation (not Music Theory) focal point because of the backstory associated with it. We know what Smetana intended it to mean because he wrote it out very explicitly:

The composition describes the course of the Vltava [Moldau], starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Labe (or Elbe, in German).

And now I'll shamelessly steal (yes, you're shccked, SHOCKED) from a college Music Appreciation quiz I dredged up online. (Navari's Music Apprecation 202 at Skyline College):

Part Three (3 pts.)

Throughout history, music has been used for many purposes. We have listened to music intended for church

services and music written for entertainment. Music has also been used a political tool. Sometimes this was the

composer's plan, but other times a piece took on a special meaning long after the composer had passed away. The Moldau is a piece of music which took on special significance 75 years after Smetana wrote it. To find clues about why this piece came to represent a political idea, we must first look at Smetana's life and his political beliefs. Smetana grew up in Bohemia (now known as Czechoslovakia). At the time he lived, Bohemia was under the repressive control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Czechs did not have freedom to govern themselves and were treated unfairly. Smetana did not like this. He wanted the Czechs to be free and govern themselves. He began to write music that included folk songs, legends, and other national material that was associated with his homeland. He wanted to celebrate the Czech culture and national spirit through his music. When Hitler and the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Czech symphonies played The Moldau as a protest against the German invasion until the Nazis banned all performances of The Moldau in the capital city of Prague in an attempt to break the Czech people's independent spirit. Why do YOU think that The Moldau, Smetana's piece about Bohemia's mighty river, became a powerful political symbol for the Czech people's national spirit? (Hint: Think about how Smetana describes how the Moldau is formed. Think about what a mighty river does for a country and how a river behaves in floods.) Write at least three COMPLETE sentences to answer this question.

I'll let you guys answer that in comments. It's three points!

Ma Vlast, in particular The Moldau, grew over the years to became a symbol for Czech nationalism, and, I think, to be accurate, we can call it patriotism in this case.

A 59 second Czech beer commercial with the Moldau theme.

Smetana apparently liked beer, if the ad is to be believed. We'll skip all the Youtubes of Moldau guitar rock outs. Did you also know that Czech airlines play the Moldau over the in-cabin speakers when they land? I didn't.

I hope you can imagine, now, just how importance it is to any young Czech conductor's career that he know to conduct a good Moldau! I can't think of anything in American music that would carry as much career-destroying potential. Even Roseanne Barr was able to get over her National Anthem, even after she flipped off a whole baseball stadium. And the Moldau isn't necessarily easy to conduct. In the performances by Czech conductors, especially, you can hear more eccentricity in terms of tempo and volume dynamics. Even setting aside the fact that this is piece of music composed smack dab in the very heart of the Romantic period where individual interpretation was expected, Bohemian folk music, too, placed high value on free-spirited performances.

Let's talk about the Moldau main theme itself for a moment. While I was prepping the diary, my brother, mister retired studio musician who hates classical music, came in and said, "What was that? I actually understood that one."

Smetana (like Dvorak) derived many things, like the Moldau main theme, from Bohemian folk music. And if any Jews here hear the above theme and go, "Oh, that's familiar somehow, it's because it reminds you of the Hatikvah.

Another great historical recording. This is from the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

The singing begins at 2:00, but it's worth hearing the very moving set up. The Hatikvah, this traditional Jewish song, in a different form, eventually became the Israeli national anthem. The world's only minor key national anthem. The lyrics were written in 1878. The Samuel Cohen orchestration was arranged in 1888. This is contemporary with when Smetana was composing the non-Jewish Bohemian Moldau. So it seems reasonable to think that they both have their roots in the same deeply-laid eastern European folk music tradition of the nineteenth century.

In 1919, twenty-two years before the Nazis banned the Moldau, the British government in Palestine banned the Hatikvah:

The British Mandate government briefly banned its public performance in 1919, in response to an increase in Arab anti-Zionist political activity.[2] A former member of the Sonderkommando reports that the song was spontaneously sung by Czech Jews in the entryway to the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chamber in 1944. While singing they were beaten by Waffen-SS guards.[3]

According to wikipedia, which notes the connection with the Moldau, the Hatikvah/Moldau theme's musical roots can be traced even further back, to seventeenth century madrigals. For instance, the Mantovana, this Italian madrigal song.

These transformations have some interest to us today, because of the musical form of Smetana's Moldau, which is basically an example of Variations on a theme. The Moldau goes through seven sections, all based on the same theme, the one from the beer commercial. It shows up in different ways, sometimes obviously, sometimes not so obviously. When I, young Dumbo, at the time, took Music Appreciation yea many years ago, when the teacher tried to show us how this theme morphed into that theme, I really couldn't hear it at first. If you don't hear it, don't sweat it, not with the Moldau or any other classical piece we survey -- just enjoy the music and know there's a pleasant surprise that's going to hit you in the face when you go AHA! some day. Compared to many other pieces, the variations in The Moldau are rather simple.

I decided to go today with the Rafael Kubelik 1990 live performance with the Czech Philharmonic. Rafael Kubelik went into exile in the west in the fifties to avoid Communist control, but even in life outside Czechoslovakia, the Moldau remained one of his signature pieces. This performance marked a return to Prague after 41 years.

Kubelik's performance is very lively. It's about moderate in its time (about 11:36) in this clip. There are faster and slower ones out there. The 1939 Talich recording at the top is one of the slowest that I've ever heard.

The Moldau (or Vltava), by Bedrich Smetana (from Ma Vlast). Performed by Rafael Kubelik and the Czech Philharmonic, 1990.

1. (0:00) The beginning. Smaller tributaries join together to begin forming the larger river. The flutes play a warbling motif, like trickling water running through rocks and fields, punctuated with plucks on the strings, like the sounds of water drops.

Notice that flute "water" motif. Play it back in your head more slowly, swing the rhythm a little bit... and it is revealed to be the basic Moldau theme. This flute "water" motif will return throughout the piece.

2. (0:53) The Vltava River. With the striking of the triangle, the flutes give way to the deeper strings, repeating the fast "water" motif, heralding the entry of the main Moldau theme, which we discussed at the top. And notice how the conductor Kubelik SWELLS the music up and down, emphasizing the water visuals.

3. (2:44) As the river flows, the music becomes more turbulent and grand. Now we hear horns, perhaps hunters in the meadows on the banks of the river. (I'm extemporizing on that one.) This turbulent section will return in a new form later.

4. (3:37) The horns fade away, and we hear a peasant dance. "... Landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated," as Smetana wrote. The Moldau theme is here, too, in the details.

5. (4:55) The dance music fades away, in the distance, as the river moves on. And now we enter a rather eery, moonlit section. "... The round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft." As the dance music fades, the woodwinds come out of hiding. The flute returns with the "water" motif again, but now it is in a major key. Above this soars a slow, haunting major key melody derived from the Moldau theme, played only by the high strings, very airy and ghostlike. It's idyllic until the heart-breaking chord change at 5:54. But it returns to the major key. At 6:41, the horns begin to gradually intrude into this calm scene, and that heralds the return of...

6. (7:17) The return to the main Vltava river theme, a full restatement. The woodwinds swirl with the water motif, taking us past the castles and, with the striking of the triangle, to the main Moldau theme. But this time it ends rather abruptly, leading us into...

7. (8:17) The Rapids. "The Vltava swirls into the St John's Rapids..." (Photo of St. Johns Rapids from a Czech tourism site.) The music's entrance to the rapids is rather abrupt, punctuated by the mass entry of the timpani. The music here is very similar to that of section two, the same "hunters" type theme on the horns. But the music, and the water, become more turbulent, before the river eventually enters into...

7. (9:42) The City of Prague. The Moldau theme returns, now in a major key, grandiose, joyous, and triumphant, performed by full orchestra. At 10:59, the river moves on, the orchestra dropping out to leave only the water motif. And a final cadence.

Next week:

I'm going to do a partial REBOOT of the series with a diary on Sonata-allegro form, which some of you may remember was the subject of the very first Thursday Classical Music diary. (Or posts, as they are now called. I'm slow to adjust.) I think we need to get refreshed on that before beginning Beethoven's Fifth, which will be week after next, to let people catch up on just what we are talking about. And I think I may have a new angle on explaining it, so that I can be a little more organized than I was the first time.

ALSO, be sure to check out PTL's Monday Music series. this Monday's diary was on the American woman composer Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, the woman who eventually founded the Society of American Women Composers. and some of the difficulties she ran into.