Family concert: “Má vlast” (My Country)

It’s hard to imagine, but some composers wrote beautiful music without being able to hear it themselves. One was Bedřich Smetana, who went deaf when he was around 50 years old. Nevertheless, he went on to compose a major work that describes his homeland of the Czech Republic in melodious images and stories. Chief conductor Kirill Petrenko and horn player and presenter Johannes Lamotke introduce you to two of them: Vyšehrad, an impressive castle, and Vltava, the river that turns from a trickle into a raging torrent – and became Smetana’s most famous music ever.

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