Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Czech Music

France conquers Janacek.

Article Excerpt
The music of Leos, Janacek has never had an easy time in French musical life. Granted, the Moravian Teachers' Choir Association first brought Janacek's choral music to France in a successful tour in 1908 at a time when Janacek had not yet been admitted to the hall of fame even in his homeland, and the composer took pleasure from the fact that his opera Jenufa was staged in France in his lifetime. On the other hand, decades had to pass before this chance foreigner became a guest composer with rights of permanent residence in the repertoire of French opera houses and concert halls.

If Janacek's name and works were eventually to gain a place in the broader consciousness of French music culture, this was due not just to his growing reputation outside France, especially in the German and English speaking world, but also to powerful impulses from within the domestic cultural milieu--musical, literary and musicological. The composer and conductor Pierre Boulez paid tribute to Janacek's works with his ambitious interpretations especially of the Glagolitic Mass and From the House of the Dead. Milan Kundera made Janacek the theme of brilliant essays, and Guy Erismann, who died...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!