Smetana, Martinu and Dvorak - Program Notes

Published: Jan. 15, 2016, 1 p.m.

Download the Program Notes. Seattle Symphony Orchestra Music Director and former BSO Assistant Conductor Ludovic Morlot leads an all-Czech program featuring three different generations of composers. Smetana was the first and most important Czech nationalist composer, and the tone poem The Moldau, from his large orchestral suite My Country, is by far his most familiar piece. Bohuslav Martinů studied in Paris and adopted a more cosmopolitan style, but a Czech flavor infuses much of his work. The rich and colorful, thirty-minute Fantaisies symphoniques was commissioned for the orchestra's 75th anniversary and was premiered in 1955.