Composer of the Week

In today's episode, Donald Macleod explores music of the open air - and the story of a woman six centuries old... Janacek's "Danube" symphony was left unfinished at his death - all that remains of a planned trip down the river with his beloved Kamila that never came to fruition. Meanwhile, the composer's Concertino for piano stands as one of his most charming works - full of filigree flourishes and charming melodies inspired by a spring spent in the idyllic countryside of Eastern Czechoslovakia. We end with the climactic scene of the composer's penultimate opera - the tragic case of Emila Marty, doomed to live forever, in the legal drama "The Makropoulos Affair".