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9781580463096

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An engaging and progressive work of musicology and music theory that is as thoughtful as it is thought-provoking. . . (This) meticulously researched monograph reads cleanly and swiftly. . . Katz's ability to trace Janacek's personal sense of being within the changing political climate of the Czech lands is uncanny. MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES (John K. Novak) Illuminating. . . Written in a broadly allusive but pleasingly unpretentious style. . . It's salutary to see a musicologist taking issue with the oft-revered pronouncements of Theodor Adorno, who managed to get Janacek conceptually wrong on every count. OPERA NEWS Absolutely fascinating. On each subject treated in one chapter after another, Derek Katz reveals remarkable creativity. . . The topic is ambitious, the author brilliant, the reading captivating. FORUM OPERA (Nicolas Derny) Derek Katz's fine book is must reading for anyone with a serious interest in the operas of Janacek and his place in the development of European operatic and musical traditions. Katz trenchantly deconstructs and reassesses all the oft-repeated generalizations about Janacek's obsession with speech melodies and his role as an old avant-gardist, folkorist, or iconoclastic modernist. The result is a more complex understanding of Janacek's compositions as products of a dynamic mix of musical, dramatic, and texx understanding of Janacek's compositions as products of a dynamic mix of musical, dramatic, and textual imperatives created with a keen awareness of Czech and international operatic and com

Illuminating... Written in a broadly allusive but pleasingly unpretentious style... It's salutary to see a musicologist taking issue with the oft-revered pronouncements of Theodor Adorno, who managed to get Janacek conceptually wrong on every count. --OPERA NEWS Absolutely fascinating. On each subject treated in one chapter after another, Derek Katz reveals remarkable creativity... The topic is ambitious, the author brilliant, the reading captivating. --FORUM OPERA (Nicolas Derny) Derek Katz's fine book is must reading for anyone with a serious interest in the operas of Janacek and his place in the development of European operatic and musical traditions. Katz trenchantly deconstructs and reassesses all the oft-repeated generalizations about Janacek's obsession with speech melodies and his role as an old avant-gardist, folkorist, or iconoclastic modernist. The result is a more complex understanding of Janacek's compositions as products of a dynamic mix of musical, dramatic, and textual imperatives created with a keen awareness of Czech and international operatic and compositional traditions. --Gary B. Cohen, professor of history, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

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