The River

Duration: 500

Complete Record: Melting ice drips into a spring stream and sunlight flashes off the moving surface of the water. Smetana’s symphonic poem, “The Moldau (Czech: Vltava) is the musical foundation of this visual poem which follows a river from its source to a harbor where it empties into one of the Great Lakes. It is a “journey through both time and space” says filmmaker, Lou Wise. We follow the river from late winter at its source, through spring as the river widens, and into summer at its mouth. As the music builds in instrumentation, complexity and volume, so the river also gathers strength as it progresses and the life along its bank increases. Beaver dams, spring flowers and nesting robins give way to dams and bridges, motorcycles and trains, gulls and ships.