0:00 – 1. Furiant
5:04 – 2. Slepička (Little Hen)
7:59 – 3. Oves (Oats)
13:01 – 4. Medvěd (Bear)
16:04 – 5. Cibulička (Little Onion)
20:48 – 6. Dupák (Stomp Dance)
24:12 – 7. Hulán (Lancer)
28:46 – 8. Obkročák (Stepping Round)
31:40 – 9. Sousedská
36:02 – 10. Skočná
After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, Czech lands were ruled by the House of Habsburg and the Czech language was essentially eradicated, only being used by illiterate peasants. That lasted until the events of Czech National Revival, which meant a systematic re-establishment of the language. These favourable times for our culture lasted approximately since the 1770s to 1850s, which is when Smetana was born (1824). Until then great Czech composers (Benda, Vaňhal, Dussek, Voříšek…) usually lived a cosmopolitan life, leaving the country at the first possible occasion. Smetana’s lifelong goal was different: revival of national music and elevating it to be valuable at the concert platform. This significantly altered the course of Czech classical music to come.
The second book of Czech Dances is his last work for the piano and is a great example of his compositional style – merging folk elements (he used K. J. Erben’s collection Simple Czech Folk Songs and Sayings as a source here) with virtuoso pianism and sophisticated polyphony. Due to this they are sometimes loosely compared to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. Smetana is said to have admired Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, but had criticism on him not using Czech dances which were being forgotten at the time. Thus Smetana did. He was aided by the old teacher Suchý, who lived in Jabkenice and remembered how the dances had been performed.
Composer – Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884)
Piano – Rudolf Firkušný
Year of recording – 1977
Czech piano music playlist – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0l5Xnu2MDE&list=PLIFjhR9o2eWIKbaxnV6J4FZsf2wBdb93I