Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES Winter 2020 19 A World of Music For more information, visit: leosjanacek.eu However, I didn't need any since I had arranged for a guide in advance. Blanka, a graduate student in musicology, was an expert. In the study are the original furnishings (almost all the gis of the bride's parents) and usually the composer's Ehrbar grand piano. (It was being refinished during my visit). Today the largest room, the former bedroom, and kitchen (where the housekeeper slept), is a modern audio-visual hall with chairs set up in front of a large screen. I watched the beginning of a BBC animated cartoon production of e Cunning Little Vixen performed by Berlin's Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester conducted by Kent Nagano. I found it so intriguing and enjoyable that I ordered its DVD upon returning home. In addition to his nine operas, Janáček composed orchestral music, choral music, and chamber music, as well as piano and vocal music. One of his most famous pieces is Taras Bulba, an orchestral rhapsody based on a novella by Nikolai Gogol. e archive of Janáček's autographs, library, and correspondence as well as other documents about the history of his school can be found right next door in the former Conservatory itself, which is now part of the Moravian Museum and was entered into the UNESCO Memory of the World in 2017. Unfortunately, it was closed during my visit. e building also houses the private archive of classical and Hollywood composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957). Arrangements to do research about him or his work must be made in advance. At the small gi shop in the reception area, I purchased six-inch square postcards with colorful whimsical folk art collages featuring the composer or characters from e Cunning Little Vixen. I also bought a package of nine small squares of chocolate with the same artwork on the wrappers. I shall plan my next trip to the Czech Republic between late May and early July in order to attend a performance at the annual Leoš Janáček International Music Festival in Hukvaldy. When I am there, I'll be sure to accent the second syllable of his surname as native Czech speakers do! Of course, I shall visit his hometown memorial. Apparently, the inside looks as if he has just taken a walk and will be right back. Jayne I. Hanlin is an initiate of Alpha Omicron and current member of the St. Louis Alumnae chapter. Mrs. Hanlin, the sister of famed pianist Malcolm Frager, is the co-author of Learning Latin Through Mythology (Cambridge University Press, 1991). Moravian Museum, Department of the History of Music The Janáček Memorial House

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