Tonight's program is a symphonic journey,
touching down in seven different countries,
and with the help of video and music,
we'll gain an appreciation for how 19th-century Europe
helped shape the beautiful world that we live in today.
The theme of the concert is romanticism and nationalism.
Nearly all the music we'll hear today
is from about the same generation,
from the late 1800s, from the Romantic Age,
and this music championed national causes
and it also supported this exciting notion
of common people finally taking the reins in their society.
The 19th century was a time of national awakenings.
All over Europe, from Finland to Bulgaria,
little national groups were on the rise.
The Czechs were one of these and they struggled heroically,
surrounded by bigger neighbors --
Austrian Hapsburgs, Germans and Russians.
Now, romantic music championed both the causes of these people,
and it did it with art and it did it with music.
In the Romantic Age, for the Czech people,
Smetana was a favorite.
This piece is named for the most important river
in the Czech Republic.
It flows and it connects the culture like a thread.
And it also helped preserve the identity,
the culture and the language of the Czech people
amid those bigger neighbors.
The piece is like a landscape portrait,
and when you listen to the music,
you get caught up in the melody and you almost flow
through the forests, through the villages,
and finally into the capital city of Prague.
And at the same time, the music evokes
the persistent and the heroic struggle
of the Czech people.
To this day,
Czechs get a lump in their throat when they hear
Smetana's hauntingly beautiful melody, "The Moldau."