Experience music "From Bohemia's Grove and Field" with sheet music by Bedrich Smetana
We congratulate Bedrich Smetana on his 200th birthday! All of Smetana's sheet music here with us.
“But where friendly paths converge,
the whole world looks like home for an hour.“
Hermann Hesse, from “Demian”
“What does this quote have to do with Bedřich Smetana?” you may now ask yourself.
Well, for one thing, these words are being put into the mouth of the Bohemian composer for some inexplicable reason on the big, wide internet (for whatever reason).On the other hand, this saying actually describes several aspects in the life of the creator of Czech national music.
First of all, there is the fortunate fact that the young Friedrich, who was not particularly academically ambitious, had a passion for playing the piano; and probably only because his father (a master brewer in the service of Bohemian noble families) was an excellent violinist did this circumstance save the boy from having to follow in his father's brewery footsteps. Here, for the first time in Smetana's life, two musical souls meet, which may have given him a feeling of home.
Then there was Katerina Kolárová, a classmate at the Premonstratensian high school in Pilsen. The young woman not only turned Bedřich's head, but was also a highly talented pianist. So it happened that both of them later moved to Prague, founded a modern piano school after initial difficulties (incidentally with the help of Franz Liszt, a kind of third "friendly path") and got married on August 29, 1849. The “Golden City” Prague became Smetana's home for an hour.
And then came the letter from Gothenburg, which rescued Smetana from the political-revolutionary turmoil in Bohemia and gave him the lucrative leadership of the Philharmonic Society in Sweden, another hour home.
The most vivid example is the allegory of the home-building “friendly paths”, when Bedřich Smetana (he had consciously changed his German first name “Friedrich” to its Czech equivalent in adulthood out of an awakening national feeling) wrote the six-part cycle of symphonic poems in 1878/79 Má Vlast composed: “My Fatherland” – Probably the best-known part of it, No. 2 - The Moldau (Vltava) sketches, no paints the course of the Bohemian river with a rich musical palette of colors, starting with the two sources “cold” and “warm” Vltava: “[...]the union of the two streams in a single flood; then the course of the Vltava in forests and fields, through landscapes where happy festivals are celebrated; by the nightly moonlight of the nymphs; Castles, palaces and ruins tower proudly on nearby rocks; the Vltava swirls in the St. Johann rapids; It flows on in the wide river to Prague, Vyšehrad [the Prague castle complex] appears, finally it disappears in the distance in its majestic course in the Elbe.” [from a letter to the Publisher Urbánek in May 1879].
Whether it is the two flutes, which, playing around each other with sixteenth-note arpeggios, introduce the first course of the spring and finally their two confluence, whether the polyphonic interplay of the wave theme and the later main theme, or Smetana's places of inspiration (the confluence of the Křemelná rivers with the Vydra at Čeňkova pila on Hirschenstein during an excursion in 1867, visits to a Vltava spring in the Bohemian Forest and the St. Johann rapids in 1868-1870) – There are always two paths that meet, and from these meetings something new and at the same time familiar, homely emerges with Bedřich Smetana: music that hits the nerve of the emerging Czech national feeling everywhere.
Enough of the allegories — What kind of sheet music by Smetana is available at all-sheetmusic.com?
Bedřich Smetana (in English: “sour cream”), who would have celebrated his 200th birthday on March 2, 2024, composed until he was completely deaf and until his Death on May 12, 1884 in Prague around eight operas (as the most important for the affirmation of the Czech national movement against Austrian absolutism can probably Libuše, a work about the Czech princess and legendary figure and identity-creating Czech figurehead, premiered in 1881 at the opening of the Prague National Theater), three Orchestral works (including the “Triumph Symphony” E major op. 6, Empress Elisabeth “Sisi” dedicated), two String Quartets and a Piano trio, numerous piano music (see list below) and three organ music.
You will find around 600 editions of sheet music for Bedřich Smetana in the web shop www.alle-noten.de. Here is a systematic overview:
Piano music/organ sheet music by Bedřich Smetana:
- Salonpolkas , polkas and dances by Bedřich Smetana
- Concert Etudes by Bedřich Smetana
- Preludes by Bedřich Smetana
- Sonata in one movement E minor by Bedřich Smetana
- Rondo C major by Bedřich Smetana
- all piano sheet music and arrangements for works by Bedřich Smetana
- all organ scores and organ arrangements for works by Bedřich Smetana
Ensemble sheet music by Bedřich Smetana:
- Sheet music for Symphony Orchestra by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for String Orchestra by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for String Ensemble by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Wind Orchestra (Concert Band) for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Brass Band for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Brass Ensemble for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Mixed Ensemble for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Flexible Ensemble for works by Bedřich Smetana
Choir & vocal sheet music by Bedřich Smetana, for example arias and choruses from his operas:
- Vocal sheet music for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Mixed Choir for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Female Choir for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Male Choir for works by Bedřich Smetana
- Sheet music for Children's Choir for works by Bedřich Smetana
Of course there are numerous instrumental sheet music for Bedřich Smetana's music; from the recorder to the saxophone to the tuba — Maybe your instrument is there?
Call up the complete list of sheet music by Bedřich Smetana and filter the list under “Category” & “Sheet music for Instruments” according to your needs.
You can also search specifically for sheet music by Bedřich Smetana in our search field; For example, with the spelling bartered bride you will receive all the sheet music for Bedřich Smetana's fast-paced opera from 1866 The Bartered Bride or “Prodaná nevěsta“.
Celebrate Smetana's 200th birthday with us — Play the “Moldau”!
No matter whether in the original line-up for symphony orchestra, reduced line-up for school or amateur orchestra, arrangements for wind orchestra, ensemble, solo chamber music...
The Moldau (Vltava) simply belongs on the concert program this year!
Use the link to access our complete list of “Moldau” and filter it according to your needs. You will be amazed at how many ways there are to make the Bohemian river sound through the Milan Pospíšil [publisher of Breitkopf & Härtel Urtext edition] said: “ Vltava is not only Smetana's best-known composition worldwide, it is also similar to Largo from Dvořák's Symphony From the New World or like its humoresque G flat major, has become an icon of Czech music.”
In the footsteps of Bedřich Smetana
Do you like going on bike tours lasting several days in beautiful landscapes? Then I recommend the well-signposted Vltava cycle path!
Take the train to Bayerisch Eisenstein (the German/Czech border in the Bavarian Forest), get on your bikes there and cycle through the Bohemian Forest on the Czech side until you come to one of the sources of the Vltava. From here everything is self-explanatory up to the mouth of the Elbe near Melnik, of course with a wonderful stay in the Golden City of Prague beforehand.
Cycle along the Bohemian river and experience all the stations that were so wonderfully musically implemented by Smetana. It's best to take a good recording of the “Moldau” with and experience an up-close work of art made up of sensory impressions: noises, smells, music.