Smetana’s My Country, traditional curtain-raiser of Prague Spring
The Prague Spring International Music Festival is now in full swing in the capital, delivering dozens of concerts and set to conclude on June 3. For decades the country’s top classical music event has opened with Bedřich Smetana’s Má vlast, or My Country, which was composed in the 1870s.
It comprises six symphonic poems: Vyšehrad, Vltava, Šárka, Z českých luhů a hájů (From Bohemia's Woods and Fields), Tábor and Blaník.
This year My Country was performed at the Smetana Hall at Prague’s Municipal House by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose rendition was very well received.
This was the first opening night of the Prague Spring following the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia.
