The Intimate Life and String Quartets of Leoš Janácek
How love and tragedy informed these chamber works by the renowned Czech composer
“For Janácek,” says the distinguished conductor and scholar Jaroslav Vogel in his authoritative 1957 biography of the composer, “living and creating were synonymous and mutually complementary—one could not exist without the other.”
Indeed, Leoš Janácek was one of those composers whose life and work were so inextricably connected that you cannot gain a real understanding of his music without tracing their interaction.
That’s particularly true of Janácek’s String Quartet No. 1 (“Kreutzer” Sonata), which had been inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata (which, in turn, had been inspired by Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9), and String Quartet No. 2 (“Intimate Letters”), which had been inspired by his passions brought on by an unrequited love affair.
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