Janáček: Years of a Life. Volume I (1854–1914): The Lonely Blackbird (review)

In this hefty volume of over 800 pages, Janáček's life is examined vis-à-vis archival sources unavailable to most readers. John Tyrrell's detailed chronological account of Janáček's life up to World War I includes chapters that familiarize the reader with events, places, people, and concepts related to the composer. Sources throughout are painstakingly documented, a great improvement over well-known standard Janáček biographies, such as that by Jaroslav Vogel's Leoš Janáček: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981).

Most readers know but one Janáček; the aged composer of operas such as Kat'a Kabanova and the Makropolous Case. This volume predates these better known works and chronicles the composer's musical development from teacher to theorist to composer as well as providing insight into his personality, his views on concepts of nation, and his adoration of women outside of his marriage. The evolution of Janáček as musician is supported by myriad primary sources as well as Tyrrell's careful unbiased interpretations. Any search in this volume for a radical rethinking of Janáček's life, works, and place in music history would be in vain; this work's value lies in its objectivity and wealth of primary evidence.

Those looking for analyses of works will be better served by Vogel's biography, since Tyrrell treats the composer's works as biography; indeed, there are but a handful of music examples to be found within this tome. Readers wishing for more detailed analyses are directed by Tyrrell to liner notes of recordings, program notes from concerts, and the like. To have included such analyses in such a monumental work would have greatly increased it length, to be sure, but one still wishes for such insights, given Tyrrell's esteem in the field of Janáček studies.

To read this book from cover to cover is a daunting task even for experts in the field; inserted between chronological chapters are contextual chapters on various topics; their placement is, at times, disorienting because these excursions disrupt the chronological sequence of surrounding narrative chapters. Tyrrell suggests that readers who wish for a straightforward chronology skip those chapters that are contextual sidebars. His is a different approach to biography and one that takes some getting used to, but, in the end, is well worth the effort. Throughout the book there are several useful tables and maps. Their contents are invaluable and richly documented; their visual lay out, however could use more attention from the publisher. Among the handful of maps provided, surprisingly none of Brno is included; this city was Janáček's home for nearly his entire life, and Tyrrell repeatedly refers to notable locations and areas of the city. A city map with key Janáček locations identified would have been very useful.

Tyrrell's approach to the art of biography is clearly hands off, something he readily admits in the book's introduction. "I believe there is ... merit in a more transparent plan that might encourage the reader to find his or her own route through Janáček's life and enable a more proactive reading of the materials offered" (p. xxi). This, no doubt, will cause difficulties for non-Czech specialists; the average listener may only know Janáček by way of the opera Jenůfa, the piano suite In the Mists, or the orchestral Sinfonietta. And most would have a limited understanding of Czech and Moravian history or cultural politics. While the contextual chapters do address such topics as these in discussions of Janáček's contemporaries, the musical environment during his lifetime and the like, they are again often aimed at readers more familiar with all things Czech. Given the surge of activity in Janáček studies in the last two decades and the growing interest...