Editing Leoš Janáček (section)

== Personality ==
[[File:Janacek with wife.jpg|thumb|Janáček with his wife Zdenka, in 1881]]
[[File:Oga Janáčková 2509.jpg|thumb|Olga Janáčková]]
Janáček worked tirelessly throughout his life. He led the organ school, was a professor at the teachers institute and grammar school in Brno, and collected transcriptions of folk songs, conversations and animal vocalisations,<ref name="Zahradka">{{cite web |last1=Zahrádka |first1=Jiří |title=How Janáček created |url=https://www.leosjanacek.eu/en/how-he-created/ |website=leosjanacek.eu |access-date=25 August 2023}}</ref> all while composing. From an early age, he presented himself as an individualist and his firmly formulated opinions often led to conflict. He unhesitatingly criticized his teachers, who considered him a defiant and anti-authoritarian student, yet his own students found him to be strict and uncompromising. [[Vilém Tauský]], one of his pupils, described his encounters with Janáček as somewhat distressing for someone unused to his personality and noted that Janáček's characteristically staccato speech rhythms were reproduced in some of his operatic characters.{{sfn|Tyrrell|Mackerras|2003|p=16}} In 1881, Janáček gave up his leading role with the ''Beseda brněnská'', as a response to criticism, but a rapid decline in ''Beseda''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s performance quality led to his recall in 1882.{{sfn|Firkušný|2005|p=57}}

His married life, settled and calm in its early years, became increasingly tense and difficult following the death of his daughter, Olga, in 1903. Years of effort in obscurity took their toll, and almost ended his ambitions as a composer: "I was beaten down", he wrote later, "My own students gave me advice – how to compose, how to speak through the orchestra".{{sfn|Přibáňová|2007|p=8}} Success in 1916 – when [[Karel Kovařovic]] finally decided to perform ''Jenůfa'' in Prague – brought its own problems. Janáček grudgingly resigned himself to the changes forced upon his work. Its success brought him into Prague's music scene and the attentions of soprano {{ill|Gabriela Horvátová|cs}}, who guided him through Prague society. Janáček was enchanted by her. On his return to Brno, he appears not to have concealed his new passion from Zdenka, who responded by attempting suicide.{{sfn|Zemanová|2002|pp=130–132}} That Christmas, after Janáček suspected Zdenka of sending Horvátová an anonymous letter, Zdenka tried to instigate a divorce, but the couple agreed to settle for an "informal" divorce. From then on, until Janáček's death, they lived separate lives in the same household.{{sfn|Zemanová|2002|pp=134–135}} Eventually Janáček lost interest in Horvátová.{{sfn|Zemanová|2002|p=236}}

In 1917, he began his lifelong, inspirational and unrequited passion for [[Kamila Stösslová]], who neither sought nor rejected his devotion.{{sfn|Přibáňová|2007|p=9}} Janáček pleaded for first-name terms in their correspondence. In 1927, she finally agreed and signed herself "{{lang|cs|Tvá Kamila}}" (Your Kamila) in a letter, which Zdenka found. This revelation provoked a furious quarrel between Zdenka and Janáček, though their living arrangements did not change – Janáček seems to have persuaded her to stay.{{sfn|Přibáňová|2007|p=9}} In 1928, the year of his death, Janáček confessed his intention to publicize his feelings for Stösslová. [[Max Brod]] had to dissuade him.{{sfn|Přibáňová|2007|p=10}} Janáček's contemporaries and collaborators described him as mistrustful and reserved, but capable of obsessive passion for those he loved. His overwhelming passion for Stösslová was sincere but verged upon self-destruction.{{sfn|Přibáňová|2007|p=10}} Their letters remain an important source for Janáček's artistic intentions and inspiration. His letters to his long-suffering wife are, by contrast, mundanely descriptive. Zdenka seems to have destroyed all hers to Janáček. Only a few postcards survive.{{sfn|Přibáňová|2007|p=10}}