Smetana’s Má vlast, which will be performed by the JPO under the baton of the leading Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil, is not only Smetana’s most famous work, but also a symbolic tribute to the Czech land and nation.

Bedřich Smetana
My Country, JB 1:112

Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava
Tomáš Netopil – conductor

The JPO will perform Bedřich Smetana’s cycle of symphonic poems My Country under the baton of leading Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil. The concert will be a taste of the upcoming Year of Czech Music 2024, which will be associated with the two hundredth anniversary of Bedřich Smetana’s birth.

My Country is Smetana’s most famous work and at the same time a symbolic tribute to the Czech country and nation. While the symphonic poems Vltava and Z českých luhů a hájů describe the beauty of Czech nature, Vyšehrad with its famous harps of oracles and Tábor with its quotation of the Hussite chant recall the most significant moments of Czech history. In the poems Šárka and Blaník, the composer looked into the sphere of national legends and mythology.

The interpretation of the cycle represents a bold challenge for the orchestra and the conductor and at the same time requires a certain responsibility towards tradition. The famous performance of the cycle by the legendary conductor Václav Talich at the time of the German occupation manifested national self-confidence; half a century later, in 1990, My Country was performed by the conductor Rafael Kubelík on Prague’s Old Town Square and became a symbol of newly acquired freedom.