Bedrich Smetana

From the swirling eddies of Die Moldau to the war-ready sounds of "Blanik," Smetana's Ma Vlast is the Romantic era's musical nationalism at its best -- a set of symphonic poems celebrating the mythical origins of a people and their intense longing for Czech nationhood. By the completion of "Sarka," the third in the cycle, Smetana had gone completely deaf.