One of the best-known symphonic poems: In »The Moldau«, the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana uses music to paint the course of the River Moldau. This composition is the second part of a six part cycle entitled »Má vlast« (My Fatherland). Smetana noted the different stations exactly on his score, allowing us to follow the river’s course from its springs to Vyšehrad until it flows into the Elbe. It is a milestone of programmatic music.

Bohuslav Martinů's short melodic rhapsody concerto for viola and orchestra has only two movements and was composed in New York in 1952. The notes carry a wistful tone – a music that sounds neoromantic, turning from »geometry« to »fantasy«, as Martinů writes. According to his biographer Otakar Šourek, Antonín Dvořák’s sixth symphony »ingeniously sets to music a cheerfulness, a zest for life, joy and good spirits in every movement«.