Czech Nationalism

Czech nationalism in classical music refers to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century composers who built Bohemian and Moravian folk dance, language rhythm and historical material into orchestral, operatic and chamber works of European stature. Smetana favored the large narrative tone poem and national opera; Dvořák brought the temperaments of Bohemian and Slavic dance (furiant, polka, dumka) into symphonies, chamber music and concertos, with an unmistakable singing melodic gift; Janáček, working from Moravia, built short jagged motifs out of the rhythms of Czech speech itself. The combined output of these three composers extended Czech-language culture into a competing European prestige register at a time when the Czech lands were ruled from Vienna.

The movement coincided with the broader nineteenth-century Czech national revival within the Habsburg Empire, which fought to legitimize the Czech language in literature, theatre and music against German cultural dominance. Smetana's opera 'The Bartered Bride' (1866) and his cycle of symphonic poems 'Má vlast' (1874-1879, 'My Country') were foundational statements. Dvořák's Slavonic Dances (Op. 46, 1878; Op. 72, 1886) made him an international name; his Symphony No. 9 'From the New World' (1893), written during his New York tenure at the National Conservatory, fused Czech sensibility with American melodic material. Janáček's late operas — 'Jenůfa' (1904), 'Káťa Kabanová' (1921), 'The Cunning Little Vixen' (1924) — secured the tradition into the twentieth century.

In Smetana, listen for narrative — 'Vltava' (the second of 'Má vlast') tracks a river from its source through forest, peasant wedding and rapids to the city. In Dvořák, hear how dance rhythms (the syncopated furiant, the lilting dumka) infuse symphonic material that would otherwise be straight Brahmsian. In Janáček, listen for short jagged motifs that imitate Czech speech rhythm — they appear and reappear without conventional development.

Smetana's 'Vltava' from 'Má vlast' (1874) is the single most-played piece of Czech orchestral music. For Dvořák, the Symphony No. 9 in E minor 'From the New World,' Op. 95 (1893). For Janáček's twentieth-century brittleness, the Sinfonietta (1926).

Dvořák's New World Symphony's slow movement supplied the melody for the spiritual-style song 'Goin' Home' (lyrics added by his student William Arms Fisher in 1922) — a melody often mistaken for a genuine African-American spiritual. Janáček famously transcribed Czech speech into notation in his journals, and his late operas were built directly from those transcriptions.