Janacek: Years of a Life Volume 1 (1854-1914): The Lonely Blackbird - Hardcover

John Tyrrell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571175384 ISBN 13: 9780571175383

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2006

Synopsis

John Tyrrell's biography of the Leos Janácek is the culmination of a life's work in the field. It stands upon his existing documentary studies of Janácek's operas and translations of other key sources and his examination of thousands of still unpublished letters and other documents in the Janácek archive in Brno. Altogether it provides the most detailed account of Janácek's life in any language and offers new views of Janácek as composer, writer, thinker and human being.
Volume 1, which goes up to the outbreak of the First World War and Janácek's sixtieth birthday in the summer of 1914, consists of chronological chapters providing a straightforward account of Janácek's life year by year and another forty contextual chapters. Topics include on-going sequences ('Music as autobiography I', etc.; 'Janácek's knowledge of opera I', etc.) and individual chapters on Janácek as a teacher, as a theorist, as an music ethnographer, on his speech-melody theory, his relationship to particularly influential operas (Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, Charpentier's Louise), on his mentors (such as Antonín Dvorák) and his bêtes noires (such as Karel Kovarovic). A particular feature are the specially commissioned chapters on Janácek's health by Dr Stephen Lock (one of the editors of the Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine, OUP 1994 and 2001, editor of the British Medical Journal, 1975-91, and a Janácek enthusiast since the early postwar broadasts on the Third Programme), and on Janácek's earnings and finances by Dr Jirí Zahrádka (curator of the Janácek archive in Brno, and editor of authentic editions of Sárka and The Excursions of Mr Broucek).

About this title

Product Description:

John Tyrrell's extensive biography of Janacek marks the culmination of his life's work on the composer and benefits from his examination of thousands of unpublished documents preserved in Brno's Janacek archive. Volume I provides a chronological account of Janáek's first 60 years, interspersed with 40 contextual chapters on such topics as his illnesses and finances, his activities as teacher and music theorist, his arrangements of Moravian folk songs, his knowledge of opera and the political backdrop of Pan-Slavism.

Synopsis:

It stands upon his existing documentary studies of Janacek's operas and translations of other key sources and his examination of thousands of still unpublished letters and other documents in the Janacek archive in Brno. Altogether, it provides the most detailed account of Janacek's life in any language and offers new views of Janacek as composer, writer, thinker and human being. Volume 1, which goes up to the outbreak of the First World War and Janacek's sixtieth birthday in the summer of 1914, consists of chronological chapters providing a straightforward account of Janacek's life year by year and another forty contextual chapters. The topics include on-going sequences and individual chapters on Janacek as a teacher, as a theorist, as an music ethnographer, on his speech-melody theory, his relationship to particularly influential operas, on his mentors (such as Antonin Dvoak) and his betes noires. A particular feature are the specially commissioned chapters on Janacek's health by Dr. Stephen Lock, and on Janacek's earnings and finances by Dr. Jiri Zahradka.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0571175384
• ISBN 13: 9780571175383
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 800