Bedřich Smetana’s “From My Life”
Notes by TŌN violinist Lap Yin Lee
Bedřich Smetana’s intention for his String Quartet in E Minor, From My Life, was to depict his own life as a tone picture. Suffering from serious illness and losing hearing, he was forced to resign his position as principal conductor of the Provisional Theater in Prague in 1874 and move to the country to live with his daughter in 1876. His deafness and financial difficulties impelled him to compose music that exclusively represented himself.
From My Life consists of four movements. The first movement opens with a portentous main motif, a sharply attacked whole note followed by a bitten-off downward leap in the first movement, which also appears after the sustained high E note in the finale. In Smetana’s own words, “It is that fateful whistling of the highest tones in my ear, which in 1874 was announcing my deafness.” The second movement is marked as a quasi-Polka that carries the composer back to the happy life of his youth, when he was a devotee of dance music. The slower third movement paints a colorful and nostalgic portrait of his most beloved wife. Soon after this sentimental and intimate declaration of his love, the final movement abruptly bursts in with a triumphant triplet rhyme. However, despite this extremely energetic start, the music concludes with a sad and melancholy ending.
In April 1940, George Szell wrote to a friend expressing his suffering over the long silence in his daily life, attributing it to the depression he was experiencing. The same year, he transcribed From My Life for orchestra. “I considered all of the objections to such tampering with a composer’s work and I arrived at the conclusion that far from being a crime, it was almost a duty to arrange From My Life for orchestra,” he said. “The thematic material seems to me to call for the bigger, richer, symphonic treatment. And Smetana, you know, once said he had no quarrel with any one who thought From My Life was better-suited to other forms than the quartet.” Szell’s orchestration smoothly and beautifully interchanges the melodies between the instruments. He wittily re-arranged the quartet’s lyrical first violin melody into dialogue between flute and upper strings, and the quartet’s lower-strings melodies are now played by the brass section. Moreover, the percussion section constructs a vibrant and distinct impulse for the music. The orchestral version reserves the originality of Smetana’s work, and even enhances the color and nuance of the music.