tling sound of very high pitch, which had pre-
ceded my deafness. This little tone-picturing I dared to insert in this composition because it was so fateful for me."
Smetana always found in the small ensem-
ble of chamber music the proper interpreter for expression of his most intimate feelings. Thus the Trio, op. 15,[1] was written to the memory of his little daughter, whose death brought to Smetana a great sorrow.
Smetana never accommodated his artistic principles to the taste of the public. He was too serious an artist to make a work pleasing to the masses. His eight operas—except The Bartered Bride—had to fight against a wall of misunderstanding; and were victorious, only after many years of dispute, because of their originality and vitality. A real genius, Sme-
tana was much ahead of his time.
The Bartered Bride[2] (1866), Two Widows
