Bohuslav Martinů

Bohuslav Martinů started as a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic, studied briefly under Josef Suk, then left Czechoslovakia for Paris in 1923 and deliberately turned away from the Romantic training he'd received. Through the 1920s he tried on modern French styles and jazz idioms in works like Half-time and Kitchen Revue. By the early 1930s he'd landed on neoclassicism, but built textures denser than the Stravinsky school, composing fast: chamber works, orchestral pieces, operas including Juliette and The Greek Passion. He kept threading Czech folk melodies through it all, earning comparisons…