- Hardcover: 367 pages
- Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd (4 July 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 071954923X
- ISBN-13: 978-0719549236
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.5 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,892,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Janacek was one of the great originals in the history of music. His ideas often came from the sounds of street and countryside; to him, music sounded everywhere, in a telephone receiver, in the dust of centuries-old registers, in the flag flapping above the castle in a mad whirl. But not only is he the least imitable of 20th century composers, he is also one of the most popular. Productions of his operas - The Cunning Little Vixen, Jenufa, Kata Kabanova and others - grow in number year by year. His chamber and piano music is also increasingly heard and more and more widely loved.;Janacek created a style that was as new in his own country as it was abroad. He used structural principles that were not traditional, and his music is a synthesis of tremendous energy and great lyricism, passion and tenderness. But his operas are also psychologically penetrating studies, portraying a kaleidoscope of human emotions which audiences everywhere can readily recognize.;Yet despite his importance and popularity, very little is generally known of what Janacek was like as a man, nor of the remarkable story of his life and the late achievements of his genius.This biography draws extensively on Janacek's correspondence with his last passionate love, Kamila Stosslova, who brought forth an extraordinary lyrical flowering in the last years of his life. This book should deepen and enlarge our understanding of both the man and his accomplishment.
About the Author
Mirka Zemanova is a Czech musicologist. Her articles on Czech music and Czech musicians have appeared in several European countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Sweden. As a specialist in the Czech language and culture, she has worked with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Jiri Kout, Carlo Rizzi and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. For this book she has been able to draw on sources and papers fully accessible only to Czech speakers, and she has set Janacek against the vivid background of Czech culture that was so powerful an influence on him. She lives in London.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
With the 150th anniversary of Janacek’s birth approaching next year, maybe now is the time for a reinvigoration of a bibliography about this composer. Although many books have appeared in recent times about him, few stay in print for an extended amount of time. Forthcoming publications include John Tyrrell’s biography of a composer he has written about more than any other academic (published by Faber in 2004) and this spring a new volume from Yale, called ‘Janacek and his World’ edited by Michael Beckerman. Mirka Zemanova, a native-Czech, now living in London and regular contributor to many opera programmes, has pipped them to the post with the publication of her Janacek bibliography.
Many rightly raved about Mirka Zemanova’s previous contribution to the Janacek bibliography, her edition of the composer’s uncollected essays on musicology. The volume included many previously unseen, or at least untranslated pieces of writing by Janacek. Various reviews of performances in Brno for the local journals and newspapers were enlightening when considering the many influences on Janacek’s own writing, the Brno premieres of Cavalleria Rusticana or Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades influencing Janacek’s Jenufa, for example. Many passages have seeped their way into recent writing about the composer’s life and works with the same regularity as quotes from John Tyrrell’s many documentary translations, the letters to Kamila Stosslova particularly.
Zemanova has decided to eschew use of Tyrrell’s great translations of the letters and various documents, and returned to the original sources, itself not a bad idea. For the English speaking Janacek fan though, perhaps more cross references to those masterly volumes wouldn’t have been too bad a thing, and her dismissal of some of Tyrrell’s work is misplaced. Zemanova has great command of her material at best, but occasionally she is rather prosaic on a life that was so lacking in humdrum. Her outlining of details of the Vienna premiere of Jenufa, rather than dwelling on the Prague premiere (itself very important, but perhaps a little too glorified in recent literature) is to be commended. Her scatty musical analysis is a disappointment. Although she outlines her concern with focussing less on the ‘works’ and more on the ‘life’, her style is not always up to the dramatics of Janacek’s life. I would recommend a reading of the composer’s wife’s memoirs for some of the real drama.
It is a mixed book, fitting for such a mixed man, filled with facts that weren’t available to previous biographers, but lacking in the grasp of some other regular contributors to Janacek literature. Hopefully, however, it will be the first of a stream of issues about this fascinating composer in the year leading up to the 150th anniversary of his birth, and the 100th anniversary of the premiere of his first great opera Jenufa.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A Solid Biography - but lacking in the excitement of the man
3 Mar 2003
Format:Hardcover
With the 150th anniversary of Janacek's birth approaching next year, maybe now is the time for a reinvigoration of a bibliography about this composer. Although many books have appeared in recent times about him, few stay in print for an extended amount of time. Forthcoming publications include John Tyrrell's biography of a composer he has written about more than any other academic (published by Faber in 2004) and this spring a new volume from Yale, called `Janacek and his World' edited by Michael Beckerman. Mirka Zemanova, a native-Czech, now living in London and regular contributor to many opera programmes, has pipped them to the post with the publication of her Janacek bibliography.
Many rightly raved about Mirka Zemanova's previous contribution to the Janacek bibliography, her edition of the composer's uncollected essays on musicology. The volume included many previously unseen, or at least untranslated pieces of writing by Janacek. Various reviews of performances in Brno for the local journals and newspapers were enlightening when considering the many influences on Janacek's own writing, the Brno premieres of Cavalleria Rusticana or Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades influencing Janacek's Jenufa, for example. Many passages have seeped their way into recent writing about the composer's life and works with the same regularity as quotes from John Tyrrell's many documentary translations, the letters to Kamila Stosslova particularly.
Zemanova has decided to eschew use of Tyrrell's great translations of the letters and various documents, and returned to the original sources, itself not a bad idea. For the English speaking Janacek fan though, perhaps more cross references to those masterly volumes wouldn't have been too bad a thing, and her dismissal of some of Tyrrell's work is misplaced. Zemanova has great command of her material at best, but occasionally she is rather prosaic on a life that was so lacking in humdrum. Her outlining of details of the Vienna premiere of Jenufa, rather than dwelling on the Prague premiere (itself very important, but perhaps a little too glorified in recent literature) is to be commended. Her scatty musical analysis is a disappointment. Although she outlines her concern with focussing less on the `works' and more on the `life', her style is not always up to the dramatics of Janacek's life. I would recommend a reading of the composer's wife's memoirs for some of the real drama.
It is a mixed book, fitting for such a mixed man, filled with facts that weren't available to previous biographers, but lacking in the grasp of some other regular contributors to Janacek literature. Hopefully, however, it will be the first of a stream of issues about this fascinating composer in the year leading up to the 150th anniversary of his birth, and the 100th anniversary of the premiere of his first great opera Jenufa.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Enlightening
3 July 2006
Format:Hardcover
This work sheds all sorts of new light on what by now might be thought of as a well-known story. The author's intuitive familiarity with the Czech sources is most helpful to non-Czech readers and her musicological comments on the composer's works often enlightening. I enjoyed the rigorous discipline with which, as a Czech writer with total facility in English, she stuck to her purpose with crisp and specific phraseology, and resolutely focussed on the facts of the subject's life in a coherent sequence. Thus she puts his life in a context less reverential, bemused or tentative than much of what has hitherto been written for English readers.Essential reading for all students of Janacek.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A PERFECT CHRISTMAS PRESENT
15 Dec 2003
Format:Hardcover
I have recently given a copy of Mirka Zemanova's new biography of Janacek to my mother, who has a serious interest in classical music. She was delighted with the book. She felt the author was illuminating on the background (so important to have the history of Janacek's native Czechoslovakia explained!) and very perceptive about Janacek's influences as well as his style (especially since much of Janacek's music is rooted in the type of folk music which is not familiar to those outside Central and Eastern Europe). My mother was particularly impressed with the author's vivid description of Janacek's personality. What a delight to have a book whose author obviously has a deep sympathy for her subject, but does not clog her account of his life by conjectures!
A perfect Christmas present for any classical music lover.
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