Leoš Janáček: music is a being come alive

The Listening Service

How did Leoš Janáček, a committed Czech nationalist whose intensely personal response to the places, landscapes and traditions of his Moravian homeland, produce music that is not only instantly recognisable but also viscerally connects to audiences all over the world? And how, in the last decade of Janáček's life, did a chance encounter with a woman almost 40 years his junior release a surely unparalleled burst of creative energy and a spate of late, great masterpieces?

Tom Service goes in search of Leoš Janáček, composer and man, in the company of musicologist and conductor Nigel Simeone, and Relate Counsellor Simone Bose.

David Papp (producer)