A film essay about work and personality of Bedřich Smetana. Bedřich Smetana (2 March 1824 Litomyšl - 12 May 1884 Prague) was an important Czech composer of the Romantic period. He came from a relatively wealthy brewery family, but from an early age he devoted himself to music, especially piano and composition. After studying by Josef Proksch, he worked since 1847 in Prague as a concert pianist and music teacher, and in 1856–61 as a conductor and music teacher in Gothenburg, Sweden. After returning to Prague, he became multilaterally involved in Czech social and cultural life, even as a music critic, as the first bandleader of the Provisional Theater in 1866–74, and especially as an opera composer. At the age of fifty, he was completely deaf, but even after hearing loss he was able to compose a number of masterpieces. His illness gradually worsened and went insane; died at the Prague Institute for Insane.