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Contents

Music in the Nineteenth Century

FLUIDITY

Chapter:
CHAPTER 9 Slavs as Subjects and Citizens
Source:
MUSIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Author(s):
Richard Taruskin

Various reasons for its separate popularity, especially with non-Czech audiences, are not difficult to surmise. It makes virtuosic use of some very traditional, widely accepted representational devices; its program, or sequence of events, is represented in the music in an unusually straightforward, descriptive fashion; and its style, while never actually quoting a Czech folk song, is of a marked (and for Smetana, atypical) popular character that appeals to foreign audiences by virtue of its exoticism, the reverse side of the nationalist coin. Yet where patriotic symbolism is concerned, the famous main theme of Vltava is heavily fraught with irony, both on the producing and on the consuming ends.

Citation (MLA):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 Slavs as Subjects and Citizens." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-009003.xml>.
Citation (APA):
Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 9 Slavs as Subjects and Citizens. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Nineteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-009003.xml
Citation (Chicago):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 Slavs as Subjects and Citizens." In Music in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-009003.xml
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