His smaller pieces for the piano include etudes, waltzes, caprices, intermezzos and various descriptive compositions. It is by one of the last that he is most often remembered, a favorite of young pianists throughout the world, and of salon and pop orchestras in instrumental adaptations. This is the ever-popular Rustle of Spring (Fruehlingsrauschen), probably the most popular piece of music describing the vernal season. This is the second of Six Pieces, for solo piano, Op. 32 (1896). The rustle can be found in the accompaniment, against which moves a soft, sentimental song filled with all the magic of Nature’s rebirth at springtime. In this same suite, a second number of markedly contrasting nature, has also become familiar—the first number, played in a vigorous and picaresque style, the Marche grotesque.
Leone Sinigaglia
Leone Sinigaglia was born in Turin, Italy, on August 14, 1868. His preliminary music study took place at the Liceo Musicale of his native city and was completed with Mandyczewski in Vienna and Dvořák in Prague. The latter encouraged him to write music in a national Italian idiom. It was in this style that he created his earliest significant compositions, the first being Danze piemontesi, introduced in Turin in 1905, Toscanini conducting. Later works included Rapsodia piemontese for violin and orchestra; Piemonte, for orchestra; a violin concerto; and various works for chamber music groups, solo instruments and orchestra. He died in Turin on May 16, 1944.
His best known and most frequently played composition is a gay, infectious little concert overture, Le Baruffe chiozzotte (The Quarrels of the People of Chiozzo), op. 32 (1907). It was inspired by the Goldoni comedy of the same name which offers an amusing picture of life in the little town of Chiozzo. There Lucietto and Tita are in love, quarrel, and become reconciled through the ministrations of the magistrate. A loud theme for full orchestra provides the overture with a boisterous beginning. A passing tender thought then comes as contrast. After some elaboration of these ideas, a delightful folk song is heard first in the oboe, and then in violins. The tempo now quickens, the mood becomes restless, and the music grows sprightly. An amusing little episode now appears in woodwind and violins after which the folk song and the loud opening theme are recalled.
Piemonte, a suite for orchestra, op. 36 is a charming four-movement composition in which the folk melodies and dances of Piedmont are prominently used. The first movement, “Over Woods and Fields,” opens with a folk tune, which the composer repeats in the finale. Two other delightful ideas follow: the first in the horn, repeated by the cellos; the second in muted first violins. In the second movement, “A Rustic Dance,” the principal Piedmont dance tune is heard in solo violin and oboe; a second subject occurs after the development of the first in lower strings and woodwind. The heart of the third movement, “In the Sacred Mountain,” is a folk song first offered by the horns, accompanied by cellos and double basses. The suite ends with a picture of a festival, “Piedmontese Carnival,” its two vigorous ideas heard respectively in full orchestra, and in trumpet and first violins.
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was born in Leitomischl, Bohemia, on March 2, 1824. Though he was interested in music from childhood on, he received little training until his nineteenth year when he came to Prague and studied with Josef Proksch. For several years after the completion of his music study he worked as teacher of music for Count Leopold Thun. He soon became active in the musical life of his country; in 1848 he was a significant force in the creation of Prague’s first music school. In 1849, Smetana was appointed pianist to Ferdinand I, the former Emperor of Austria residing in Prague. From 1856 to 1861 Smetana lived in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he was active as conductor, teacher, and pianist. After returning to his native land in 1861 he became one of its dominant musical figures. He served as director of the music school, conducted a chorus, wrote music criticisms, founded and directed a drama school, and organized the Society of Artists. He also wrote a succession of major works in which the cause of Bohemian nationalism was espoused so vigorously and imaginatively that Smetana has since become recognized as the father of Bohemian national music. His most significant works are the folk opera, The Bartered Bride, and a cycle of orchestral tone poems collectively entitled My Country (Má Vlast). Smetana was stricken by deafness in 1874, despite which he continued creating important works, among them being operas and an autobiographical string quartet called From My Life (Aus meinem Leben). Total deafness was supplemented by insanity in 1883 which necessitated confinement in an asylum in Prague where he died on May 12, 1884.
The rich folk melodies and pulsating folk rhythms of native dance music overflow in Smetana’s music, providing it with much of its vitality and popular interest. Smetana’s gift at writing music in the style, idiom, and techniques of Bohemian folk dances is evident in many of his compositions, but nowhere more successfully than in his delightful folk comic opera, The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevešta). This little opera, first performed in Prague on May 30, 1866, is the foundation on which Bohemian national music rests securely. It is a gay, lively picture of life in a small Bohemian village. The principal action involves the efforts of the village matchmaker to get Marie married to Wenzel, a dim-witted, stuttering son of the town’s wealthy landowner. But Marie is in love with Hans who, as it turns out, is also the son of the same landowner, though by a previous marriage. Through trickery, Hans manages to win Marie, though for a while matters become complicated when Marie is led to believe that Hans has deserted her.
In its first version, The Bartered Bride was presented as a play (by Karel Sabina) with incidental music by Smetana. Realizing that this work had operatic possibilities, Smetana amplified and revised his score, and wrote recitatives for the spoken dialogue. In this new extended form the opera was heard in Vienna in 1892 and was a sensation; from then on, and to the present time, it has remained one of the most lovable comic operas ever written.
There are three colorful and dynamic folk dances in this opera which contribute powerfully to the overall national identity, but whose impact on audiences is by no means lost when heard apart from the stage action. “The Dance of the Comedians” appears in the third act, when a circus troupe appears in the village square and entertains villagers with a spirited dance. The “Furiant”—a fiery type of Bohemian dance with marked cross rhythms—comes in the second act when villagers enter the local inn and perform a Corybantic dance. The “Polka,” a favorite Bohemian dance, comes as an exciting finish to the first act as local residents give vent to their holiday spirits during a festival in the village square.