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Abstract:
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Smetana’s Vltava is widely described as a musical depiction of sights and scenes on a journey down the Vltava River that glorifies the river as a defining national landmark . While this understanding of the piece complies with its program and produces a formal and thematic analysis that reveals a general adherence to the conventions of the nineteenth -century symphonic poem , the interpretation only considers the work in isolation and does not account for its most exceptional features . My paper will analyze Vltava in its larger context as a part of the symphonic cycle of Má Vlast to uncover a deeper programmatic significance to the movement’s formal and thematic design , one inextricably bound up with Smetana’s Czech nationalism . The analysis will consider all of the movements of the cycle and their relationships to one another , with particular emphasis on the crucial relationship between Vltava and Z českých luhů a hájů . |