Intimate Letters

by Janacek, Leos; Tyrrell, John; Stosslova, Kamila

• ISBN13: 9780691036489
• ISBN10: 0691036489
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-04-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

These are the letters of a great love story. In 1917, the Czech composer Leos Janácek met Kamila Stosslová while on holiday at Luhacovice, a spa resort in Moravia. He was sixty-three and locked in a loveless marriage; she was twenty-six, the wife of an antique dealer frequently away from home. After the holiday, Janácek began writing to Stosslová. Undeterred by her lack of interest in his work and her spasmodic replies, he continued to send her letters until his death eleven years later. An extraordinarily self-revealing portrait emerges of an isolated artist at the height of his creative powers and the beginning of his international fame. It is also a portrait of a lonely man who, as the years went by, came to fantasize about Stosslová as his true "wife"--the inspiration for many of the works of his old age.Most of these letters were suppressed until changing conditions in Czechoslovakia allowed their full publication in 1990. John Tyrrell has edited and translated a comprehensive selection, concentrating on the almost daily letters of the final eighteen months. Supported by a diary of meetings between Janácek and Stosslová, a decoding of the erotic references in the letters, and a selection of mostly unknown photographs, this remarkable book breathes life into the story one of the greatest of operatic composers and provides vital clues to the nature of his creative genius.

Table of Contents

List of Plates
Preface and Acknowledgements
Map of Bohemia and Moravia in 1918
Map of Janacek's Railway Journeys
The Letters	p. 1
Epilogue	p. 341
Glossary of Names, Places, Works and Topics	p. 345
Diary of Meetings	p. 365
App. 1 The History of Janacek's Letters to Kamila Stosslova	p. 371
App. 2 Civil Court in Brno: Janacek against Janackova	p. 374
Note on Sources	p. 378
Bibliography	p. 379
General Index	p. 384
Index of Janacek's Works	p. 395
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