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Janacek Day - 4 July 2004 |
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Janacek in Hukvaldy In this small Moravian village nestled on the northern slopes of the Beskydy hills, Leos Janacek was born on July 3rd 1854.   1/7Hukvaldy village school. Janacek was born here on July 3rd, 1854. His father was the schoolmaster. The building has been greatly extended since then. The plaque is a tribute to Janacek: "Genius of Czech music". Janacek was one of fourteen children of the local school- and choir-master; they were very poor and only nine of the children survived. At the age of eleven Janacek was sent away from Hukvaldy to a choir school in Brno; he didn't return for over twenty years and never saw his father again - he died the year after Leos left. In later life Janacek couldn't keep away from Hukvaldy. He loved the local landscape - its chestnut woods, its fast-flowing streams - the local wildlife, the local people, the local dialect (a quickfire version of standard Czech) and the local folk music. All of those had an impact on his own music - not least his opera The cunning little vixen . For years when he visited he stayed with the Hukvaldy forester, but in 1921 he bought his own house in the village - today it's a museum to the composer. In 1928 he had an extra room built upstairs: for the first time he'd persuaded Kamila Stosslova, the much-younger married woman he'd been obsessed with for eleven years, to visit him in Hukvaldy. She arrived on July 30th. Sometime in the next couple of weeks Janacek caught pneumonia - possibly after a trip to the pretty town of Stramberk nearby. On August 10th he was taken to hospital in the city of Ostrava, where he died two days later. Every summer Hukvaldy holds a festival of Janacek's music - including performances outdoors in the forest. Map of Bohemia/Moravia Full Schedule for Janacek day |
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Schedule Map of Bohemia/Moravia Bratislava Brno Hukvaldy Luhacovice Ostrava Pisek Prague Pribor Stramberk Strbske Pleso Velka Vienna Janacek Day: full playlist Related Links on radio 3 on bbc.co.uk on the web www.janacek.co.uk Janacek Archive & Museum Classical Music Pages Museum in Janacek's house, Hukvaldy The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites. |
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'You little church in Hukvaldy' from Janacek's Hukvaldy Songs
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