Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book is the first major publication devoted to the music of Janácek, now widely regarded as one of the most important composers of the early twentieth century. The essays, all by leading scholars, deal with a broad range of subjects relating to opera, symphonic poem, instrumental music, cultural context and reception. Some topics, such as the sources of Janácek's musical expressivity, questions of narrative, Janácek as musical analyst and Janácek as realist, are considered seriously for the first time, whilst other more conventional topics, such as 'speech melody' and Janácek's ethnographic activities, are reappraised. A transcription of Janácek's analytical study of 'Jeux de vagues' from Debussy's La mer is published for the first time, and this document is considered in the light of Janácek's theory of music as a whole and of the reception of La mer.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface
• 1 Expressive sources and resources in Janacek's musical language
• 2 'Nothing but pranks and puns': Janacek's solo piano music
• 3 Narrative in Janacek's symphonic poems
• 4 Evasive realism: narrative construction in Dostoyevsky's and Janacek's From the House of the Dead
• 5 Direct discourse and speech melody in Janacek's operas
• 6 Kundera's eternal present and Janacek's ancient Gypsy
• 7 Janacek's folk settings and the Vixen
• 8 Janacek's operas in Australia and New Zealand: a performance history
• 9 Janacek's Moravian publishers
• 10 Janacek, musical analysis, and Debussy's 'Jeux de vagues'
• Index