JANCEK
Mirka Zemanova, . . Northeastern Univ., $35 (352pp) ISBN 978-1-55553-549-0
Czech composer Leos Janácek (1854–1928), unlike such prodigies as Mozart and Schubert, came into his own, creatively, very late in what was until then a quite unremarkable life, lived way off the musical map in provincial Moravia. He married a young piano pupil while he was still struggling to make ends meet, and although it seemed she never really understood the nature of his genius, he remained tied to her for life—a source of considerable conflict when he fell in love with Kamila Stosslova, a woman nearly 40 years younger, in his early 60s. It was this improbable affair (which seems to have been entirely platonic) that inspired most of the work by which Janácek continues to be best known: all the operas after
Reviewed on: 08/12/2002
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 352 pages - 978-0-7195-4923-6