Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/27/2005, uploaded on 01/20/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

His first piano composition in over a decade, Bedřich Smetana composed Rêves during August and September 1875. A small collection of descriptive programmatic miniatures, Rêves was a tremendous advancement on Smetana’s last piano work. He had matured as a composer and drew on the experience he gained during the composition of operas and symphonic poems. Furthermore, the success of Rêves bolstered Smetana’s spirits, and he went on to produce several of his greatest works. The composer also dedicated the six pieces to friends and former students who had aided him in time of financial need: the Thuns, the Noritz and Lobkowitz families.

Both “En Bohême: scène champêtre” (“In Bohemia: in the country”) and “La fête des paysans bohémiens” (“Celebration of the Bohemian peasants”) draw on the dance rhythms of Smetana’s homeland. The former starts hesitantly in the key of A minor with an ascending melodic motif which gives way to a relaxed F major tune, only to cadence later back in the minor key. The gentle ebb and flow of this opening section eventually is supplanted by an energetic central episode. In A major and over a syncopated accompaniment, the episode’s joyous tune, vaguely reminiscent of a motivic figure heard earlier, takes flight before being subjected to a brilliant treatment of running scales. A more resolved and embellished statement of the piece’s introduction marks the return of the opening section, but is briefly interrupted by a sentimental return of the trio’s melody. From there, a brief coda draws the piece to a close in A major.

The last piece, La fête des paysans bohémiens, is a boisterous polka. Opening with an angular octave passage outlining the tones of an augmented triad, a torrent of swirling sixteenth notes is unleashed over a dominant pedal in G minor and inevitably launches the piece into its main theme. The rowdy nature of the first section is nicely contrasted by the more lyrical central episode. Switching to the distant key of A-flat major and marked dolce cantando, an ornamental melody high in the piano’s upper register appears atop rippled harmonies in the left hand. The energetic pace returns with the reprise of the first theme and turns jocular with a change later to the tonic major key. With fortissimo chromatic chords and sharp rhythms, the final piece of Rêves comes to an impressive close.     Joseph DuBose

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La Fête des paysans bohémiens, from Rêves (Dreams)       Bedřich Smetana

For centuries, the educated and affluent classes in Bohemia and Moravia had been mainly German-speaking while Czech culture was the domain of country folk.  Throughout the 19th Century there was an increasing interest and drive to establish the Czech language as the intellectual equal to German and to elevate characteristically Czech culture.  Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) also furthered this cultural and political cause by writing operas on Czech subject matter to be sung in Czech (most famously "The Bartered Bride").  Of his six Rêves (Dreams), the two on today's program refer specifically to Czech country life.  In these pieces, Smetana evokes the spirit of folk music by using polka rhythms and  writing melodies that sound inspired by folk songs (featuring the repetition of one pitch at the beginning of the tune, and frequent shifts between major and minor mode).  The entire set displays a virtuoso pianism in the vein of Franz Liszt.    David Gross

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.