Once thought to be a provincial composer of only passing interest to
eccentrics, Leos Janácek (1854-1928) is now widely acknowledged as one
of the most powerful and original creative figures of his time. Banned
for all purposes from the Prague stage until the age of 62, and unable
to make it even out of the provincial capital of Brno, his operas are
now performed in dynamic productions throughout the globe. This volume
brings together some of the world's foremost Janácek scholars to look
closely at a broad range of issues surrounding his life and work.
Representing the latest in Janácek scholarship, the essays are
accompanied by newly translated writings by the composer himself.
The collection opens with an essay by Leon Botstein who clarifies and
amplifies how Max Brod contributed to Janácek 's international success
by serving as "point man" between Czechs and Germans, Jews and non-Jews.
John Tyrrell, the dean of Janácek scholars, distills more than thirty
years of research in "How Janácek Composed Operas," while Diane Paige
considers Janácek's liason with a married woman and the question of the
artist's muse. Geoffrey Chew places the idea of the adulterous muse in
the larger context of Czech fin de siècle decadence in his thoroughgoing
consideration of Janácek's problematic opera Osud. Derek Katz examines
the problems encountered by Janácek's satirically patriotic "Excursions
of Mr. Broucek" in the post-World War I era of Czechoslovak nationalism,
while Paul Wingfield mounts a defense of Janácek against allegations of
cruelty in his wife's memoirs. In the final essay, Michael Beckerman
asks how much true history can be culled from one of Janácek's business
cards.
The book then turns to writings by Janácek previously unpublished in
English. These not only include fascinating essays on Naturalism, opera
direction, and Tristan and Isolde, but four impressionistic chronicles
of the "speech melodies" of daily life. They provide insight into
Janácek's revolutionary method of composition, and give us the closest
thing we will ever have to the "heard" record of a Czech pre-war past-or
any past, for that matter.
