How composer Leoš Janáček set his daughter’s last words to music

Subtitle

As 20-year-old Olga Janáčková lay dying from typhoid fever, her father wrote down everything she said. Later, he transformed those words—and gasps—into music. The grieving father, Czech composer Leoš Janáček, called the ultra-short musical pieces "speech melodies." In this episode, language writer Michael Erard invites cellist Petronella Torin to play Olga's speech melodies. NYU's Michael Beckerman describes the controversy surrounding them.

This is among countless ways that loved ones have memorialized the final words of the dying. Michael Erard tells the stories of many of them in his new book, Bye Bye I Love You.

Music in this episode by Magnus Ludvigsson, Medité, Dream Cave, Nylonia, Alexandra Woodward, Cobby Costa, August Wilhelmsson, David Celeste, Martin Landstrom, Gavin Luke, Rand Also, Airae, Alan Ellis, Jules Gaia, Trabant 33, and Leoš Janáček. More about cellist Petronella Torin here.

The photo (via Wikimedia Commons) shows Olga Janáčková, daughter of the Czech composer Leoš Janáček, not long before her death from typhoid fever.

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