From Birmingham
THE CITY OF BIRMINGHAM POLICE BAND
Conducted by RICHARD WASSELL (Soloist, P.C. COOK )
SMETANA, the first
Bohemian composer to achieve distinction, was a great lover of his native land. He wrote a set of orchestral pieces, entitled My Country, celebrating in music its natural beauties and its history and legends.
This Tone Poem, the second of that series, is a description of the progress of the chief river of Bohemia, the Vltava (or Moldau, as we know it), from its source in the depths of the forest until, after tumbling over rapids and streaming past frowning fortresses, it joins the Elbe as a broad, rolling river. It witnesses on the way typical scenes of Bohemian life-a hunt and a peasant wedding; and by moonlight it spies forest nymphs dancing in a glade.