Martinu, Bohuslav, << mahr TEE noo, BAW hoo slahf >> (1890-1959), was a Czech composer whose works combined influences from both the Czech and French musical traditions. He wrote a large number of works, including chamber music, orchestral pieces, operas, ballets, cantatas, songs, and concertos.
Bohuslav Jan Martinu was born in Policka, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia (now part of the Czech Republic) on Dec. 8, 1890. He studied the violin from the age of 6 and spent four years at the Prague Conservatory. He later became an orchestral violinist. In 1923, he moved to Paris to study with the French composer Albert Roussel and stayed for the next 17 years. In 1940, Martinu escaped to Portugal just ahead of the German invasion of France, and in 1941, he arrived in the United States. There, he composed his first five symphonies. Perhaps his best-known symphony is his Fantaisies Symphoniques, also known as his sixth symphony, first performed in 1955. In 1953, Martinu returned to Europe, living mostly in France, Italy, and Switzerland.
Martinu’s other major works include his opera Julietta (1938) and his second cello concerto (1944). In his Memorial to Lidice (1943), a work for orchestra, he uses harsh-sounding music to express his emotions at the atrocities committed in the Czech town of Lidice by the German Nazis during World War II (1939-1945). Martinu died in Liestal, Switzerland, on Aug. 28, 1959.
