SMETANA, as our listenors know, although overshadowed by his former pupil, Dvorak, was none the less the first Bohemian to raise the music of his native country to a distinguished place in tho world's art. A patriot first and foremost, an enthusiast for the native music of his country, he aimed at giving the Slav rhythms, especially the Polka measure, a place of their own in the classical forms.
Ultava is the second of a series of six Symphonic Poems, the whole bearing the proud title 'My Country,' and being dedicated to the city of Prague. The composer has himself furnished the score with a preface which forms the best possible guide to his music :
' Two springs well up in the depths of tho
Bohemian forest; the one warm and sparkling, the other cool and still. Rippling gaily over the rocks, these two streamlets unite and flow on together under the glistening rays of the morning sun. The swiftly-flowing forest brook flows into a river-the Ultava (i.e., the Moldau)-and as it flows through the meadows of Bohemia, at last becomes a mighty stream. It flows through dense forests: where the merry bustle of tho hunt and the horns of the huntsmen aro heard : it flows through lich pastures and plains, where, to the joyful strains of song and dance, a wedding festival is being held. At night, under the light of the moon, tho nymphs of the woods and water sport on its shining waves, in which the towers and castles of the ancient nobles and warriors-tho sole relics of a. glorious past-are brightly reflected. Arrived at the rapids of St. Joliann, the stream; bursting in cataracts through the rocks, finds its way to the broadest part of the river's bed, and thence sweeps majestically past Prague, where it is greeted by the venerable fortress of Visohrad (the citadel built by the Duchess Libussa in the ninth century), and then disappears in the far distance from the mind's eye of the poet.'