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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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In Reply to: Re: I assume you already know about Janacek? (nt) posted by Amphissa on October 25, 2006 at 13:48:26:
. . . is probably the best known English authority on Janacek's music. I believe his newest biography of the composer is scheduled to come out next month. He's written lots of articles connected with Janacek and his music (including one entitled, "Janacek and the Speech Melody Myth", in Musical Times).Also, here are a couple of excerpts from Jaroslav Vogel's biography of the composer, wherein Vogel incorporates some of Janacek's own words (in quotes below):
At the beginning of the 1890s he [Janacek] started systematically taking down the melodic and rhythmic qualities of the spoken word - even sounds of animals and objects - and found that with the help of these 'speech melodies' he could 'form the motif of any given word, the most common or the most uplifted', and that he could thus 'encompass the whole of everyday life or the greatest tragedy. . .'. . . The speech melodies which Janacek collected throughout his life were not to be employed mechanically. They were to him what sketches are to a painter - a key to the inner life of people, animals and thinkgs. They became the basis of his thematic work. The most striking ideas would be repeated literally or in a free variation (usually in the form of a concluding phrase) . . .
. . .
Needless to say, not all Janacek's motifs and thems are derived from speech meloldies, but are also of instrumental origin.,
Vogel's biography is very thorough and is a gold mine of information. Vogel has a lot more to say about Janacek's style and compositional processes than I can suggest by the quotations above. The speech melodies (napevky) were used not only in his vocal works but also in many of his instrumental works as well - see my previous post about the Concertino.
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Follow Ups
- John Tyrrell. . . - Chris from Lafayette 15:30:19 10/25/06 (3)
- Re: John Tyrrell. . . - Amphissa 19:50:24 10/25/06 (2)
- California. . . - Chris from Lafayette 16:28:44 10/26/06 (1)
- Re: California. . . - Amphissa 07:26:08 10/27/06 (0)
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