Composer

Leos Janácek

1854-1928

Born in 1854 in North-Eastern Moravia, Leoš Janáček had an extraordinary life, marked by tragedies in his family, inspired in his late work by his love for a married woman and encouraged by success which did not come his way until his sixties. He lost both his children: his son Vladimír at the age of two and his daughter Olga at twenty-one. His wife Zdenka tried to kill herself.

Biography Works Discography

At 63, Janáček met Kamila Stösslová, a married woman and mother of two children, several decades younger than himself, and fell in love with her. It was an emotional upheaval which found expression in a range of mature works as well as in 650 letters.

Extraordinarily enough, most of Janáček’s masterpieces were all composed in his last years. Recognition of Janáček’s significance went hand in hand with the realisation that, beyond being a Czech composer equal to his fellow countrymen Smetana and Dvořák, he was also one of the greatest opera composers of the 20th century.