Page "Bedřich Smetana" Paragraph 26

Back in Sweden, Smetana found among his new pupils a young housewife, Fröjda Benecke, who briefly became his muse and his mistress.

In her honour Smetana transcribed two songs from Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin cycle, and transformed one of his own early piano pieces into a polka entitled Vision at the Ball.

He also began composing on a more expansive scale.

In 1858 he completed the symphonic poem Richard III, his first major orchestral composition since the Triumphal Symphony.

He followed this with Wallenstein's Camp, inspired by Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein drama trilogy, and began a third symphonic poem Hakon Jarl, based on the tragic drama by Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger.

Smetana also wrote two large-scale piano works: Macbeth and the Witches, and an Étude in C in the style of Liszt.