Nors S. Josephson: Janácek’s Intimate Letters (Listy duverné). Erotic Biography and Creative Genesis

This study of Janácek’s love letters to Kamila Stösslová reveals their frequent allusions to specific passages of his second string quartet, Intimate Letters. Another significant source for tracing the creative genesis of this work lies in the numerous sketches and drafts preserved in the Janáček Archive of the Moravian Museum, Brno. These indicate that the original endings of the first two movements were more lyrically and less dramatically conceived. Sketches for the second episode and final coda of the fourth movement reveal a more organic fusion of his masculine, feminine, and child-like motives and an even greater contrapuntal and cyclical union of the principal themes from both the third and fourth movements. Janácek’s published score shows an ever-increasing sensitivity towards extended musical architecture. The composer eventually links the codas of the first and second movements and turns the dance-like third movement into a variation sequence based on the first movement, while the child’s themes at the end of the second and third movements are transformed into the finale’s main rondo refrain. Similar interlocking variation chains permeate Janácek’s contemporary Nursery Rhymes (1925-1926) and opera, From the House of the Dead (1927-1928).

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