COMPOSER

Bedřich Smetana

1824 - 1884

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Bedřich Smetana ( BED-ər-zhikh SMET-ə-nə; Czech: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau" (in English, "The Moldau"). Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Bedřich Smetana is the 28th most popular composer (down from 26th in 2019), the 10th most popular biography from Czechia (up from 12th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Czech Composer.

Bédřich Smetana is most famous for his symphonic poem, "Má Vlast" (My Country).

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Among COMPOSERS

Among composers, Bedřich Smetana ranks 28 out of 1,451. Before him are Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Claudio Monteverdi, Maurice Ravel, Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, and Claude Debussy. After him are Jacques Offenbach, Dmitri Shostakovich, Ennio Morricone, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, and Sergei Prokofiev.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1824, Bedřich Smetana ranks 2. Before him is William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin. After him are Alexandre Dumas fils, Anton Bruckner, Gustav Kirchhoff, Stonewall Jackson, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Maria Alexandrovna, Eugène Boudin, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Paul Broca, and Dayananda Saraswati. Among people deceased in 1884, Bedřich Smetana ranks 2. Before him is Gregor Mendel. After him are Maria Anna of Savoy, Elias Lönnrot, Marie Taglioni, Hermann Kolbe, Cetshwayo kaMpande, Paul Morphy, Johann Gustav Droysen, Charles Adolphe Wurtz, Jean-Baptiste Dumas, and Marie Bashkirtseff.

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In Czechia

Among people born in Czechia, Bedřich Smetana ranks 10 out of 1,200. Before him are Ivana Trump (1949), Gregor Mendel (1822), Antonín Dvořák (1841), Jan Hus (1369), John Amos Comenius (1592), and Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1316). After him are Milan Kundera (1929), Oskar Schindler (1908), Alphonse Mucha (1860), Václav Havel (1936), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875), and Edmund Husserl (1859).

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Among COMPOSERS In Czechia

Among composers born in Czechia, Bedřich Smetana ranks 3. Before him are Gustav Mahler (1860), and Antonín Dvořák (1841). After him are Leoš Janáček (1854), Bohuslav Martinů (1890), Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679), Johann Stamitz (1717), Josef Mysliveček (1737), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897), Josef Suk (1874), Anton Reicha (1770), and Eduard Hanslick (1825).

Czech born Composers

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