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Brief
Timeline of Janacek’s Life ·
Born in Hukvaldy, northern Moravia, on July 3, 1854. His family was of
the Czech kantor tradition. Both his grandfather and father were teachers. ·
At the age of 11, Janacek became a chorister at the Augustinian
"Queen's" Monastery in Old Brno. Moravia's leading composer, Pavel
Krizkovsky, took an interest in his musical education. ·
Studied at the Prague Organ School (1874-75) and then returned to Brno to
resume his teaching, conducting the monastery choir and Svatopluk (from which he
resigned in 1876). Appointed conductor of the Beseda choral society (which he
turned from a male chorus into a mixed group). Combining the Beseda group with
his monastery choir and institute students, he formed a group of 250 voices to
perform large-scale works such as the Mozart Requiem and Beethoven's Missa
Solemnis .
·
In 1894, he began composition of his opera Jenufa , which he did
not complete until 1903. There were possibly five years between the composition
of the first act and the rest of the opera. Jenufa was premiered in Brno
in January of 1904, but not staged in Prague until 1916 in a version revised by
Karel Kovarovic. The work was an instant success in Prague. The opera was
reviewed enthusiastically by the Prague German writer, Max Brod, who became
Janacek's champion, the translator of his subsequent operas, and his first
biographer. ·
In 1904, he resigned from the Teachers' Institute to concentrate on his
duties at the Organ School and on composition. Works from the period of 1904 to
1916 included the operas Osud (1903-7), Mr. Broucek's excursion to the
moon (1908-18), solo piano music, three male-voice choruses written for the
Moravian Teachers' Choir, the tone poem Sumarovo dite , and other works. ·
Jenufa's success
in Prague led to an amazing creative period for Janacek, well into his sixties.
He began a friendship with Kamila Stosslova, 38 years younger and the wife of an
antique dealer in Bohemia. He never left his wife for her, but wrote to her
almost daily and kept a special diary about her. ·
From 1919 to 1925, composed three of his best operas, Kat'a Kabanova (1919-21),
Prihody Lisky Bystrousky ("The Cunning Little Vixen" 1921-23), Vec
Makropulos ("The Makropulos Affair" 1923-25). He wrote the First
String Quartet in 1923, began a four movement symphonic war, Dunaj (The
Danube"), wrote a wind sextet in 1924 and the Concertino for piano and
chamber ensemble in 1925. ·
Janacek's fame had steadily spread throughout Europe and the United
States ( Jenufa had important premieres at Berlin and at New York's
Metropolitan in 1924). In 1926, he wrote the five movement orchestral
Sinfonietta, the Capriccio for piano left hand and chamber ensemble and the Glagolska
Mse ("Glagolitic Mass"). ·
On February 10, 1927, he was elected, together with Schoenberg and
Hindemith, a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. He began work on his last
opera, Z mrtyeho domo ("From the house of the dead"). In 1928,
he wrote his Second String Quartet ("Intimate Letters"). ·
In July 1928, Janacek went to his cottage in Hukvaldy where he was met by
Kamila, her husband (for the first few days), and her 11 year old son. Kamila's
son got lost on one of their expeditions and while searching for him Janacek
caught a chill, which rapidly became pneumonia. He died on August 12, 1928. |