Description

This is the first major book about the music of the Czech composer Leos Janácek. This is the first major book about the music of the Czech composer Leos Janácek, one of the most important composers of the early twentieth century. The essays cover a range of topics relating to opera, symphonic poem, instrumental music, cultural context, reception, and Janácek as music theorist and analyst. This is the first major book about the music of the Czech composer Leos Janácek, one of the most important composers of the early twentieth century. The essays cover a range of topics relating to opera, symphonic poem, instrumental music, cultural context, reception, and Janácek as music theorist and analyst. This book is the first major publication devoted to the music of Janácek, now widely regarded as one of the most important composers of the early twentieth century. The essays, all by leading scholars, deal with a broad range of subjects relating to opera, symphonic poem, instrumental music, cultural context and reception. Some topics, such as the sources of Janácek's musical expressivity, questions of narrative, Janácek as musical analyst and Janácek as realist, are considered seriously for the first time, whilst other more conventional topics, such as 'speech melody' and Janácek's ethnographic activities, are reappraised. A transcription of Janácek's analytical study of 'Jeux de vagues' from Debussy's La mer is published for the first time, and this document is considered in the light of Janácek's theory of music as a whole and of the reception of La mer. Preface; 1. Expressive sources and resources in Janácek's musical language Robin Holloway; 2. 'Nothing but pranks and puns': Janácek's solo piano music Thomas Adès; 3. Narrative in Janácek's symphonic poems Hugh Macdonald; 4. Evasive realism: narrative construction in Dostoyevsky's and Janácek's From the House of the Dead Geoffrey Chew and Robert Vilain; 5. Direct discourse and speech melody in Janácek's operas Milos Stedron; 6. Kundera's eternal present and Janácek's ancient Gypsy Michael Beckerman; 7. Janácek's folk settings and the Vixen Zdenek Skoumal; 8. Janácek's operas in Australia and New Zealand: a performance history Adrienne Simpson; 9. Janácek's Moravian publishers Nigel Simeone; 10. Janácek, musical analysis, and Debussy's 'Jeux de vagues' Paul Wingfield; Index. 'After reading this volume, even those sceptical about Roger Scruton's recent claim that Janácek is the greatest of all twentieth-century composers should find it more difficult to ignore his music, and the interpretative challenges it poses, than they might have done before.' Arnold Whittall, Music and Letters