Page 214 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

212

IN CONTEXT
THE MUSIC OF THE FOCUS

Nationalism and folk music
PEOPLE IS LIKE BEFORE

1723 Czech composer Dismas
Zelenka writes his Ouverture
A RARE AND à 7 concertanti.

1776 Czech-born Johann
LOVELY FLOWER Baptist Vanhal publishes
Six Symphonies, Op. 23, works

SYMPHONY NO. 9, “FROM THE NEW that influenced Classical style.
1862 Bedrˇich Smetana
ˇ
WORLD” (1893), ANTONÍN DVORÁK composes the opera The
Brandenburgers in Bohemia,
which is a great success.
AFTER
1904 Leoš Janá cˇ ek premieres
°
his opera Jen ufa, which uses
“speech tunes” based on a
Moravian dialect of Czech.
1905–08 Béla Bartók and
Zoltán Kodály visit Hungarian
villages to research and record
traditional songs and dances.

ohemia, the largest and
westernmost region of
B the Czech Republic today,
was formerly part of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. For centuries,
its capital Prague enjoyed a rich
musical life, strongly influenced by
German and Austrian composers.
In the late 18th century, Mozart
visited five times, wrote a “Prague”
symphony (No. 38), and premiered
his opera Don Giovanni in the city.
By the mid-1800s, however,
fueled by a failed revolution in
1848, a nationalist movement
was underway that would have a
powerful impact on all the arts. In
music, both Bedrˇich Smetana and
Antonín Dvorˇák began to use

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