POLITICS IN HIS MUSIC

Radio Record, 15 July 1938, Page 21

POLITICS IN HIS MUSIC

CZECH COMPOSER USED NATIVE MELODIES , TO ROUSE HIS COUNTRYMEN

‘THAT unspeakable musical walleyedness for which the nineteenth century was notorious may take the whole of the twentieth century to disappear. Friedrich Smetana, a Czech composer, produced "The Bartered Bride" in Prague on May 30, 1866, yet it did not reach New Zealand until the late 1930’s, and then only through gramophone records. If "The Bartered Bride’ were an ordinary kind of work, such a thing would be understandable, but this opera is a masterpiece. It is pure comedy, of course, which fact may account in part for its tardy recognition. Smetana was essentially a nationalist, and it may be that was his undoing in other countries. His eignt operas are of the very soil of Bohemia, and the collective title of his six symphonic poems is "My Fatherland."

a) Yet all his music, despite its Bohemian origin and melodic bias, is as international as is Mozart’s or Cimarosa’s, with both of whom he is rightly held to have affinity. | "The Bartered Bride," a pastoral opera, had at the time of writing a political as well as musical signifieance, The revival of native melody and sentiment in music was part of the resistance of the Nationalist party to Austrian domination of Bohemia. Dvorak and Smetana were the leaders cf this musical blockade. The opera simply electrified Prague, The plot of Smetana’s work hinges on the activities of the "marriage broker," a social: middleman who still exists in certain parts of the world, The music is interwoven with .many jolly Bohemian folk and dance tunes, On Sunday, July 17, at 4YA, Smetana’s comic opera, "The Bartered Bride," will be presented in a recorded . version which was made in the Czech National Opera House, Prague.