Bedřich Smetana (1824 – 1884): The Bartered Bride
He is often called “The Father of Czech Music” and yet for much of his life Bedřich Smetana took musical inspiration from beyond his homeland. He also did not learn to speak his native tongue until he was almost 40 years old.
His career was diverse and somewhat uneven, as he drifted for many years between teaching, performing and conducting, all the while struggling to be taken seriously as a composer. An aspiring piano virtuoso, he tried, unsuccessfully, to turn himself into as a Bohemian Franz Liszt. Possessing both patriotic fervour and diplomatic charm, he trod a precarious line between showing rebelliousness towards his homeland’s Habsburg rulers while happily lapping up their patronage.
Although based in Prague for much of his life, Bedřich Smetana spent his early childhood in the small town of Litomyšl, close to the old border between Bohemia and Moravia. His father František was a successful brewer as well as something of an entrepreneur – during the Napoleonic wars he had set up a highly profitable business selling clothes and unforms to the military. Not that the eventual defeat of Napoleon had done much to improve the lives of František’s countrymen: Bohemia remained under the control of the Austrian Habsburgs, while its official language was German.
As František’s first son – after six daughters – Bedřich’s gender was a cause for some celebration. Legend has it that his father danced a galop with the midwife immediately after his birth, a scene worthy of one of his son’s future operas.
Having wasted no time in having the child baptized, the only remaining question was what to call him. František wanted to name the boy after himself, but his wife Barbora protested that she had just been visited by an angel in a dream, who instructed her to call him Friedrich* – which was, coincidentally, the same name as one of Barbora’s former lovers, a dashing young soldier tragically killed in action.
*Smetana only changed his named to the more Bohemian-sounding Bedřich as an adult. For sake of clarity, I will refer to him as Bedřich throughout.
Although little Bedřich would quickly show an unusual musical talent, some of it he surely inherited from his parents – František was a decent amateur violinist while Barbora had once worked as a dancer. By the age of five he had formed an inseparable relationship with a violin, donated to him by his parents, and he would play the instrument for hours on end. But he enjoyed the piano a good deal less and had to be cajoled into practising: “my father pulled me by the ears and let me do penance on my knees, and then I went to my first lesson”, Bedřich later recalled. He soon came round, not least when he discovered the instrument offered much more scope for creating his own musical inventions. The first of these he played to his piano teacher, who wrote them down – a waltz and a galop, lively dance forms that would become highly characteristic of Bedřich’s music in the decades ahead.
Bedřich progressed so well on the piano that by the age of six and a half, he was able to make a debut public recital at Litomyšl’s Philosophical Academy, playing an arrangement of an operatic overture by Daniel Auber, to thunderous applause. A long battle then ensued between father and son to keep Bedřich’s attentions on his school studies, as František intended him for a career in the law. Matters were not helped by several family moves during Bedřich’s childhood, and he endured some miserable periods at boarding school. Finally, at the age of 15, and to an extent at his own instigation, he was enrolled as a boarder at Prague’s Academic Grammar School, allowing him the opportunity to live in Bohemia’s famous capital.
Although still lacking any formal musical training, Prague offered up new possibilities to the young man. Outside of classes, he formed a string quartet with three likeminded friends. Unable to afford sheet music, Smetana took himself off to cheap, classical concerts in the city, wrote down from ear any striking passages or themes he heard, and then tried them through with his quartet the next day.
He also continued to write his own compositions, combining a love of lively folk dances with more modernist pretensions (one string quartet from this time was written in the highly unusual key of D Flat Minor).
But even as Smetana began to blossom as a musician, his academic studies were headed in the opposite direction. Things came to a head when one of his Prague schoolteachers mocked his country accent in front of the whole class, to general laughter. “I can bear anything but an insult,” Smetana declared and stopped attending his lessons.
When František found out what had happened, he was not in a mood to be sympathetic. Having pulled his son out of Prague, he told him that if he would not become a lawyer then he could become a provincial farmer instead. Thankfully a relative intervened and organized for Bedřich to finish his education at a school in Plzeň (Pilsen) – although this time his working habits would be more closely monitored. Grateful for the reprieve, Bedřich settled down to three more years of study and to an extent even flourished in Plzeň, finding himself in demand as a pianist for many of the town’s musical events.
Plzeň would however prove to be no more than a temporary staging post. Smetana could not wait to get back to Prague, and as soon as he was able, he departed again for the city. Although his father had by now accepted his son’s wish to become a professional musician, he could not offer any financial support, and to begin with Bedřich’s fortunes almost sank. Lacking any money and finding piano pupils hard to come by, he often went without the basics and was constantly hungry.
But Smetana was also fast developing a gift for making useful musical contacts, with one fortuitous introduction leading him to a local nobleman, Count Felix Leopold of Thun-Hohenstein. The count was duly impressed by the young man and offered him a position as a live-in music tutor to his five children. Smetana quickly became a valued member of the Thun household, taking a full part in their busy social life while making further musical connections.
His duties for the Thon family were also light enough to allow him time for some serious musical study. Through another friend he was introduced to Josef Proksch, then head of the Prague Music Institute, and it was proposed that Proksch should take the young man on as a composition student. Proksch himself was reluctant at first, as he was shocked at the relative backwardness of Smetana’s technique (“such wild talents will not accomplish anything” he complained). But Smetana proved himself a quick learner and in time the teacher-pupil relationship would bear much fruit.
Proksch also played a key role in expanding Smetana’s musical world, enabling him to meet Hector Berlioz, a composer the young man greatly admired, when the latter came to conduct in Prague. But it was Franz Liszt who really captured Smetana’s imagination during these early years, as a symbol of what a modern day composer-performer should be. Having recently attended one of Liszt’s legendary piano recitals, Bedřich confided in his diary: “with God’s help and grace, I will one day be a Liszt in technique and a Mozart in composition.”
By 1848 Smetana had built up a useful portfolio of Proksch-approved compositions, and was ready to make his next move. He now wrote directly to Liszt, enclosing the manuscript for his recently composed Six Characteristic Pieces for Piano, Op. 1, proudly dedicated to his hero. Then, with all the fearlessness of youth, he asked the maestro if he could find a publisher for the work, before requesting a loan of 400 florins to help set up a new music school in Prague.
Liszt, a generous-minded man well used to unsolicited demands, replied courteously, expressing praise for the pieces, and promising to help with their publication. Although somewhat vaguer over the issue of a loan, he did keep his word to visit Smetana’s new music school once it was set up. From this initial, promising exchange, a lifelong friendship would form between the two composers.
While Liszt’s music left a deep impression on the young Bohemian, Smetana would ultimately find a way to harness Liszt’s imaginative powers without imitating his stylistic mannerisms. Of all Liszt’s protégés, Smetana was arguably the most successful at forging his own creative identity. Liszt would later recognize as much, describing his old friend as “undoubtedly a genius”.
Securing the support of a powerful ally was an important early boost for Smetana, even if his overall reputation remained frustratingly provincial for many years. He was particularly disappointed not to be able to emulate Liszt as a derring-do piano virtuoso, having been forced to abandon a concert tour of Western Bohemia in the late 1840s, as the attendances were so poor.
But he did manage to open his Prague music school, and for a while it flourished, to the point where its founder felt sufficiently well off to get married. His bride was a fellow pianist, musician and Bohemian nationalist, Kateřina Kolářová, with whom he had been in love for many years. A firm friend well before there was any romance between them, Kateřina had been on hand to give Bedřich staunch encouragement with his (initially difficult) studies with Proksch. In turn, Bedřich had dedicated several early compositions to her, while touchingly confessing to his diary: “when I am not with her I am sitting on hot coals and have no peace.”
Having found genuine happiness in love, it was just the rest of Smetana’s life that still needed some work. Despite his evident talent, he was not an immediate hit in Prague, with many in the city’s music establishment regarding him with suspicion, not only for his links to Liszt (still regarded as a dangerous madman in respectable society), but for his progressive political beliefs. In 1848, Smetana had joined a pro-democracy movement in Prague which demanded an immediate end to absolutist Habsburg rule, not only in Bohemia but also in neighbouring Moravia and some of Austrian-controlled Silesia, all of which were regarded as “Czech lands”.
Smetana even took part in an uprising in Prague later that year, helping to man the barricades on the city’s famous Charles Bridge, and was lucky to escape arrest after the rebellion was crushed by Austrian forces. Several of his fellow revolutionaries were less lucky and endured lengthy prison sentences.
Smetana not only escaped jail, but covered his insurgent tracks so well that soon after he was accepting a position as pianist to the court of former emperor, Ferdinand I, now residing in Prague castle. A year or so after that he went one step further and composed a Triumphal Symphony to commemorate the wedding of the new Holy Roman Emperor, Franz Joseph. The work was however rejected by the royal court and also failed to make much impression when Smetana organised his own performance in 1855.
For all his diplomatic skills, Smetana did not particularly enjoy the stiflingly conservative atmosphere of Prague during these years, and nor was life treating him well in other ways. In the mid-1850s he was left reeling by the deaths of three of his four daughters. Worst of all, his beloved Kateřina was now ill with tuberculosis. Some of the heartache from this period undoubtedly found expression in one of his finest early works, the Piano Trio in G Minor, written in memory of his eldest daughter Bedřiška.
Smetana longed to escape the Bohemian capital and spread his wings. But while many other young composers in his situation might have dreamed of going to Paris, Vienna or even Weimar, Smetana chose the unlikely seeming destination of Gothenburg – largely on the recommendation of his fellow piano virtuoso, Alexander Dreyschock.
“Prague did not wish to acknowledge me, so I left it”, Smetana announced to his parents as he departed for Sweden. It did not initially worry him to find his adopted city almost as drearily conservative as the last – in fact, it felt almost ideal to him, like a blank slate which he could fill in as he wished. Within a few months he had established himself with several concerts, founded another music school and become conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music.
His creative work continued to develop. With Liszt still his guiding light, he embarked on a series of Lisztian tone poems, including Richard III, Wallenstein’s Camp (based on Schiller’s drama trilogy) and Hakon Jarl (based on a tragic drama by Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger). Although these works undoubtedly show a new mastery in both their dramatic imagery and imaginative orchestration, they still do not quite sound like the mature Smetana. An important ingredient was still missing.
And for all his steady progress, it was probably inevitable that homesickness and an underlying dissatisfaction with Gothenburg (he wrote letters full of complaints about the city to Liszt) eventually drove the composer back to Bohemia. He freely admitted that “my home has rooted itself into my heart so much that only there do I find real contentment. It is to this that I will sacrifice myself.”
But by the time he had made the decision to return, five more years had passed. Poor Kateřina had died in 1859, and Smetana had since re-married, to his brother’s sister in law, Bettina Ferdinandová. In sharp contrast to Kateřina, Smetana’s union with Bettina would prove to be little short of disastrous. Bettina appeared to have little time either for her new husband or his music and after just a few years, the couple were forced to live apart, even as they never divorced. “I cannot live under the same roof as a person who hates and persecutes me”, Smetana wrote sadly.
On the other hand, better times awaited the composer in his old beloved Prague, with the Habsburg’s repressive grip on the city having weakened in recent times. The Bohemian capital was by now bursting with new ideas and an ever increasing desire to find its own voice. A new concert hall had just been opened, the Provisional Theatre, specifically for the performances of Czech opera.
Prague was therefore ready for the return of its wandering son, while Smetana was ready to deliver some serious goods. The first seeds towards what would become his operatic masterpiece had been sown a few years earlier by a dismissive comment from a conductor friend of Liszt’s, who had suggested the Czechs were incapable of creating their own music. “I swore there and then that no other than I should beget a native Czech music”, was Smetana’s defiant response.
Although Smetana would be made to wait for an opportunity to do so, it finally arrived in the form of a competition, organised by the wealthy Czech patriot Jan von Harrach, for a suitable “nationalist” opera, to be performed at the Provisional Theatre. Smetana’s own entry soon appeared in a work entitled The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, depicting 13th-century Czechs attempting to liberate Prague from German oppressors – a historical subject, certainly, but also a provocatively topical one.
Composed in 1863 but not premiered until 1866, The Brandenburgers was well-received by audiences (“I was called out on stage nine times”, Smetana proudly recalled), as well as deemed worthy of von Harrach’s musical prize. Most importantly, it served as a perfect warm-up for a second Smetana opera, following hot on its heels, a singspiel entitled The Bartered Bride. It was the latter that would change the face of Czech music forever.
Although the librettist, Karel Sabina, a journalist and political activist, would produce an attractive plotline, his text would be revised and re-written many times over during the opera’s creation, often by Smetana himself. Indeed, the whole process of doing justice to the syllabic rhythms of Sabina’s text forced Smetana, for the first time in his life, into a close study of his native tongue. Having endeavoured to speak and write the language every day over a lengthy period, he eventually mastered it sufficiently to be able to take up a post as music critic to the Czech-language newspaper Národní Listy in 1864.
After three years of putting music and words together in piecemeal fashion, the opera was finally premiered at the Provisional in May 1866. Rather surprisingly, it did not land well with the public, while the critics found it somewhat turgid. Smetana was inclined to agree with the latter and put the opera through various further revisions before presenting it again in September 1870. This time all the constituent parts clicked perfectly into place and the work was deemed a great success. Even better, it would become a major international hit over the subsequent decades, with performances taking place all over the world and attaining a widespread appeal that remains to this day.
In many ways, it’s hard to comprehend how the opera could have initially bombed. Beginning with its famous and unforgettable Overture, it fizzes along with effervescent energy and a bustling joie de vivre that hardly lets up for more than two hours. And even in spite of Smetana’s involvement with Liszt’s avant-garde school in Weimar, the opera owes much more to Mozart and Rossini than Wagner, not least with its fleet-footed pacing and often hilarious physical comedy.
But what most defines the opera, and makes it almost unique for its time, are the various Bohemian dance-forms and folksong-like melodies that characterize so much of the music, evoking Smetana’s homeland with both passion and humour. Aside from village-dance polkas, there is a memorable Furiant (a spirited Bohemian dance, alternating time signatures of 2/4 and 3/4) which Smetana employs for a rowdy drinking song. And when a travelling circus turns up in the second half of the opera, they perform a breathless and virtuosic folk dance known as a Skočná.
The story itself revolves around a young village couple (Mařenka and Jeník), who are deeply in love, but forbidden to marry by self-interested parents and a scheming marriage-broker. The latter has persuaded Mařenka’s parents to marry her off instead to a wealthy but entirely unsuitable suitor named Vašek.
With neither side willing to give way, intrigues abound, until the marriage broker appears to triumph, persuading Jenik to let go of his claims on Mařenka in exchange for money – in effect bartering his intended bride to Vašek. The whole community is shocked when they learn of Jenik’s actions and chase him out of town. But are things as they seem?
The Bartered Bride should finally have established Bedřich Smetana as one of central Europe’s rising stars and led to an altogether happier, more successful phase of his career.
But even as his music surged on its upward curve, Smetana’s life was falling apart in almost every other way. Aside from his failing marriage, his recent appointment as principal conductor to the Provisional Theatre had foundered badly, with political rivalries and professional hostilities undermining his progress in the role. The job gradually wore him down, and ill-health, partly brought on by stress, eventually forced him into an early retirement aged just 50. By then he was almost completely deaf too.
Few could have imagined that the battle weary Bedřich Smetana still had a final decade of astonishing creativity ahead of him – a period that would not only confirm him as musical royalty in his own land, but as one of the greatest nationalist composers of the nineteenth century.
A complete performance of The Bartered Bride (with English subtitles) can be found here.