“My Homeland is the great culmination of all that Smetana created in the field of instrumental music, it is the great hymn of our glory. […] Today we shall be witnesses of Smetana’s glory, and therefore also witnesses of our own glory, for My homeland, if it were even one work of our master, would be enough to make him one of the greatest musicians of all nations and ages.“
Czech Newspapers, 1882
On 2 July 2021, in the year when the festival was subtitled The Keys to Home, we announced the start of the 200th anniversary of Bedřich Smetana’s birth with a rendering of My Country by identical performers. Now we return to our ‘symphonic gospel’ at its best in the finale of the year’s festival, symbolically subtitled Our Country.
Bedřich Smetana: My Country
cycle of symphonic poems
Vyšehrad • Vltava • Šárka • Z českých luhů a hájů • Tábor • Blaník