Preface

Summary

Robin Holloway writes on p. 11 below of this volume: ‘[Janáček's] reception is both ardent and on-target; he is not misunderstood, and no longer a cause. The next steps, alas, are academic appropriation and universal establishmentarianism.’ Holloway is surely right to suggest that Janáček's works are now viewed widely and enthusiastically as core repertory – particularly the operas, which are performed more regularly than those of almost any other twentieth-century composer. And, of course, the devotion of a ‘Studies’ volume to a composer's music is the seal of ‘academic appropriation’ par excellence. Nevertheless, I hope this volume might be excused on the grounds that very little has yet been published about Janáček's music, even if, as Hanns Eisler once famously remarked, he is perhaps this century's most innovative composer in terms of musical ‘expression’. In fact, the Janáček literature is still so overwhelmingly dominated by popular biography that a ‘Studies’ book could be regarded as long overdue, or at least as a valuable corrective.

The essays are not themed: the weighting towards opera, for example, reflects Janáček's apportioning of his energies rather than a scholarly agenda. Two authors essentially share Eisler's view of Janáček as the ultimate creator of musical expression. Holloway takes on both the entire oeuvre (centred on opera) and Janáček the man, seeking to discover how music ‘can be reconciled with an aesthetic of unmitigated expression grounded in human utterance’.