Ján Levoslav Bella

Bella was born in Liptovský Mikuláš (Liptau-Sankt-Nikolaus), Austrian Empire (now Slovakia), and raised in a Roman Catholic family.

He left the priesthood in 1881 and converted to Protestantism, becoming director of music in Hermannstadt/Nagyszeben, now Sibiu in modern Romania, (at that time Kingdom of Hungary) where he remained until 1921.

In 1873 however, visiting Vienna and Prague, he heard for the first time the music of, amongst others, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner and Bedřich Smetana.

This encounter with romantic music had a profound effect, of which the first result was Bella's 1874 symphonic poem Osud a ideál (Fate and the Ideal), which premiered in Prague in 1876.

In recent times, Bella's music and reputation have been revived by, amongst others, the Slovak composer and scholar Vladimír Godár.