Leos Janáček in Motion

Here is the only film footage of the composer Leos Janáček, set to some of his late music. Though only seven seconds long, it captures his brusque, hectic style -- something never put across by photographs. We are left with this, and with many vivid accounts of the Maestro's behavior:

"We started rehearsing. The viola player was comfortably seated next to me with his legs crossed and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He smoked away and here and there even played a few notes. The others were no better. After the first few bars, the Maestro suddenly jumped up, rushed at the unfortunate viola player and began, 'Well, dear sir, what on earth do you think you are playing? What are you dreaming about?' He stamped and shouted and sang the parts as they should sound, and the amazed viola tried with constant repetitions of a single, typical Janáčekian figure to perpetrate an unknown style until the cigarette fell out of his mouth and he lost all desire for further smoking."
— František Kudláček, leader of the Moravian Quartet


"He was the very life and soul of the school. He seemed to be everywhere and knew about all that went on. . . Slow thinking irritated him, also prolonged unadventurous compositions. He liked us to express ourselves in short concise terms, which was, in fact, his own method of self expression. His teaching was anything but dull. . ."
— Jaroslav Kvapil, student at the Organ School of Brno.