He wrote 6 symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works.

Dropped from the violin program, Martinů was moved to the organ department that taught composition, but he was finally dismissed in 1910 for "incorrigible negligence".

In the meantime, he passed the state teaching examination and maintained a studio in Polička throughout World War I, while continuing to compose and study on his own.

As World War I drew to a close and Czechoslovakia was declared an independent republic, Martinů composed the celebratory cantata Czech Rhapsody (Česká rapsodie), which was premiered in 1919 to great acclaim.

He was particularly attracted to Stravinsky, whose novel, angular, propulsive rhythms and sonorities reflected the industrial revolution, sports events and motorised transportation.

[3] Ballets were his favorite medium for experimentation, including The Revolt (1925), The Butterfly That Stamped (1926), Le raid merveilleux (1927), La revue de cuisine (1927), and Les larmes du couteau (1928).

Martinů found friends in the Czechoslovak artistic community in Paris and would always retain close ties to his homeland, frequently returning during the summer.

In 1927, Martinů happened to see him at a café, introduced himself, and gave him the score of a symphonic triptych, La bagarre, that was inspired by Charles Lindbergh's recent landing.

It was while he was in this distraught, frenzied state that Martinů composed one of his greatest works, the Double Concerto for two string orchestras, piano and timpani.

[7] After the Munich Agreement, President Edvard Beneš began to form a Czechoslovak government in exile set up in France and England.

Charlotte wrote: "We fell in love with Aix: the delicate murmur of its fountains calmed our agitated feelings and later Bohus was inspired by them.

"[8] Finally, on 8 January 1941, they left Marseilles for Madrid and Portugal, eventually reaching the United States in 1941 with the help of his friend, the diplomat Miloš Šafránek, and especially from Martinů's Swiss benefactor, Paul Sacher, the conductor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, who arranged and paid for their passages.

They were helped by several musician friends, including pianist Rudolf Firkušný, violinist Samuel Dushkin, cellist Frank Rybka, diplomat Miloš Šafránek, and multi-lingual lawyer Jan Löwenbach [cs].

Martinů soon found that he was unable to resume composing in noisy Manhattan, so for the following season they leased a small apartment in Jamaica Estates, Queens, close to the Rybkas.

This leafy, residential neighborhood was conducive for him to take long solitary walks at night, during which he would work out music scores in his head.

On several occasions he would "zone out" in deep concentration about the music, becoming oblivious of his surroundings and getting lost, and would then call a friend with a car to come find him and take him back home.

One of the first compositions Martinů wrote in New York was the Concerto da Camera for violin and small orchestra, in fulfillment of a commission he had been awarded before the war by Paul Sacher.

One night, Martinů took his customary walk on the terrace, a section of which had no railing, and he fell off, landing on concrete, and was hospitalized with a fractured skull and concussion.

Martinů was branded as a formalist and émigré traitor, and he chose wisely not to pursue any kind of professional engagement in his native land from this time forward.

His symphonic scores were performed by most of the major orchestras: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, and he generally received fine reviews from the leading critics.

Owing to the extraordinary volume of Martinů's oeuvre, some critics who never knew the man have stated that he composed too much, too fast, and therefore must have been careless in quality.

[19] Martinů's notable students include Burt Bacharach, Alan Hovhaness, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Louis Lane, Jan Novák, H. Owen Reed, Howard Shanet and Chou Wen-chung.

In 1953, Martinů left the United States for France and settled in Nice, and completed his Fantaisies symphoniques; the following year he composed Mirandolina and piano sonata, and met Nikos Kazantzakis, beginning work on The Greek Passion.

During 1955 he created several key works: the oratorio Gilgames (The Epic of Gilgamesh), the Oboe Concerto, Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca, and the cantata Otvirani studanek (The Opening of the Wells); Charles Munch conducted the Fantaisies symphoniques premiere in Boston which gained the composer the annual New York critics' prize for the work.

[20] In 1956, he took up an appointment as composer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome and composed Incantation (his fourth piano concerto) and much of The Greek Passion, which he completed in January the following year.

[20] Jan Smaczny commented that in the compositions of Martinů's last years "we find the composer attempting through his music a vicarious homecoming",[21] although he never returned to Czechoslovakia.

The bulk of his writing from the 1930s into the 1950s was in a neoclassical vein, but with his last works he opened up his style to include more rhapsodic gestures and a looser, more spontaneous sense of form.

[citation needed] He dedicated it to Lucie Bigelow Rosen, who had commissioned it and was the theremin soloist at its premiere at New York's Town Hall on 3 November 1945, joined by the Koutzen Quartet, Robert Bloom (oboe), and Carlos Salzedo (piano).

Evidence of his having an autism spectrum disorder was compiled and evaluated, using the established criteria found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disease (DSM-IV).

[31] In 2011, Rybka published a Martinů biography, in which such traits are reviewed, such as his failure of social reciprocity, his flat affect and stolidity, his phobias and extreme stage fright, his strict adherence to a ritualized schedule, and his zoning out into an aura, while walking with his mind deeply engrossed in composing.