Aus dem Studentenleben - MVSR1999 | Music

It is a well-known fact that Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) was not a very good student. In 1840, his parents sent him to Plzen, where, under the supervision of his older cousin, Professor and author Frantisek Josef Smetana, he was to complete his studies. Young Bedrich, however, won fame as a man about town, who often got invited to parties where he excelled on the piano. He wrote many piano compositions in Plzen, mostly polkas, which he dedicated to his admirers and his young loves. Smetana lost the manuscript of one of the polkas, composed in 1842, but remembered it in the 1850s during a stay at Göteborg. He recorded it again, dedicated it to his Swedish friend Fröjda Benecke and called it "Aus dem Studentenleben" (From Student Life). Benecke kept the manuscript until 1912 when she sent it to Bohemia where the polka was published for the first time that year. Later, the original version was also found and was published in 1924 by Professor Zdenek Nejedly (orchestrated by Isa Krejci). The three-movement piece attests to the degree of the young Smetana's extraordinary invention.