5. Final years, 1874–84.

Smetana was granted an annual pension of 1200 gulden by the theatre consortium in exchange for permission to stage his operas without payment. In order to reduce his expenses the whole family moved in June 1876 from Prague to live with Smetana's oldest daughter Žofie, married to the forester Josef Schwarz, in Jabkenice near Mladá Boleslav. Josef Srb-Debrnov became a self-sacrificing intermediary in various negotiations in Prague, acting as a type of personal secretary until the end of Smetana's life. Contact with the theatre was made principally through the conductor at the Provisional Theatre, Adolf Čech. Deafness in no way crushed Smetana's spirit or diminished his musical imagination; on the contrary, throughout all the final decade of his life, he took advantage of being able to compose undisturbed. Immediately after becoming deaf, while still in Prague, he completed the first two movements, Vyšehrad and Vltava, of his symphonic cycle Má vlast (‘My Fatherland’); the remaining four movements were written in Jabkenice over the next five years. During his final decade he also wrote the two string quartets (the first of which, subtitled ‘Z mého života’ – ‘From my Life’, movingly portrays the onslaught of deafness), both series of Czech Dances for piano, and the song cycle Večerní písně (‘Evening Songs’). Choruses of the period include the demanding Píseň na moři (‘Song of the Sea’) and two pieces written for the 20th anniversary of the Prague Hlahol, Věno (‘The Dowry’) and Modlitba (‘Prayer’). Most importantly, there were three more operas: Hubička (‘The Kiss’, 1875–6), which at its première on 7 November 1876 immediately won an overwhelming ovation, Tajemství (‘The Secret’, 1877–8) and Čertova stěna (‘The Devil's Wall’, 1879–82).

In the Czech musical and cultural world Smetana gradually became recognized as the chief representative of a Czech national music. This process of equating Smetana's personal style with a national style was consolidated through the second half of the 1870s and continued after his death. He himself was fully aware of the role which some of his works had begun to fulfil; the more this awareness grew among the Czech public, the greater became his sense of obligation. A characteristic attitude can be found in a letter to Ludevít Procházka of 31 August 1882, when he refused to compose a comic insertion for The Two Widows requested by the German arranger of the opera:

I must seek to keep that honourable and glorious position which my compositions have prepared for me among my people and in my country. – According to my merits and according to my efforts I am a Czech composer and the creator of the Czech style in the branches of dramatic and symphonic music – exclusively Czech. … I cannot work with such a frivolous text; such music disgusts me and, if I were to do it, I would only prove to the whole world that I write whatever they want from me for money.

Smetana began to acquire various honours. He was made an honorary member of many musical societies, and at the beginning of the 1880s Czech society began to prepare several significant celebrations as a sign of artistic recognition. On 4 January 1880 in memory of the 50th anniversary of his first appearance as a performer a gala concert took place with the premières of the symphonic poems Tábor and Blaník (the two final parts of Má vlast) and Evening Songs. In September 1880 Smetana's birthplace organized the ceremonial unveiling of a plaque. On 5 May 1882 an exceptional event in the history of Czech opera took place – the 100th performance of The Bartered Bride. Its success was so great that a second ‘100th performance’ had to be given. Similarly celebratory and exceptional events included the first collective performance of the symphonic cycle Má vlast on 5 November 1882. For Smetana, however, a particular satisfaction was the ceremonial opening of the National Theatre on 11 June 1881 with his Libuše, which had won the competition for this purpose. Although he had finished it in 1872, Smetana had patiently waited for the completion of the theatre and not allowed it to be performed before then. After the fire which demolished the theatre soon after its opening he too, despite his age and condition, took part in fund-raising activities. His concert in Písek on 4 October 1881 in aid of the rebuilding of the theatre was his last appearance as a pianist. The theatre reopened with Libuše on 18 November 1883. In the following year celebrations for Smetana's 60th birthday began to be prepared, the gala concert and the banquet in his honour however took place without him. His worsening health meant that in April he had to be transferred to the Prague Lunatic Asylum, where he died on 18 May 1884. The orchestral cycle Pražský karneval (‘The Prague Carnival’) and the opera Viola based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (which he had begun in 1874 before The Kiss and resumed in 1883) remained incomplete at his death.

Smetana, Bedřich