• Napoleonic wars and invasions (1789-1815) created a sense of national identity

• Eastern & Central Europeans started to break away from Austrian/German stranglehold

• Fascination with folk culture– Legends, fairy tales, dances, folk songs

• Music inspired by history, legends, even landscapes

Nationalism

Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884)

• First great Czech composer• Repressed due to Austrian rule • Immigrated to Sweden, until Austrian rule lightened• Most famous piece: Ma Vlast

– A cycle of 6 Symphonic Poems• Based on castles, landscapes,

ancient Bohemian legends• The Moldau – depicts the main river that flows

through Bohemia

The Moldau

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)• Czech composer• Traveled abroad, eventually came to

America (director of National Conservatory of Music)

• Spent summers in Spillville, IA• Interest in Negro Spirituals, Native American music• "I am convinced that the future music of this country must be

founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of

America and your composers must turn to them."

New World Symphony

• The symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and premiered in 1893

• Based on American folk music

• Use of Negro spirituals– First Movement- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot– Second Movement- Going Home

• National identity also lead composers to be fascinated with foreign lands

– Oftentimes the Middle East or East Asia

• Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov (1844-1908)– Scheherazade

• Based on The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

Exoticism

Scheherazade