1951 - 1959

1951 - Begins work on the Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No. 6). Composes the Serenade for violin, viola, violoncello, and two clarinets. a production of Veselohra na mostě (composed 1935) at the Mannes School of Music receives an award from New York critics for the best opera premiered in the city that year.

1952 - Gains American citizenship. After a break of fifteen years returns to opera, composing for the National Broadcasting Corporation What Men Live By (after Tolstoy) and The Marriage (after Gogol). Also writes the Rhapsody-Concerto for viola and orchestra.

1953 - Receives a year's fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, leaves the USA, and settles with Charlotte in Nice. From this point on he will live mainly in France, Italy, and Switzerland. Completes the Fantaisies symphoniques.

1954 - Composes the opera Mirandolina and the Piano Sonata. Meets Nikos Kazantzakis and begins work on the opera The Greek Passion.

1955 - Composes a series of important works: the oratorio Gilgames (The Epic of Gilgamesh), the Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra, Les fresques de Piero della Francesca for orchestra, and the cantata Otvirani studanek (The Opening of the Springs). Charles Munch premieres the Fantaisies symphoniques with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston and New York. Martinu wins the annual New York critics' prize for the work. Is elected a member of the (American) National Institute of Arts and Letters. Late in the year returns for the last time to the USA, for several months, teaching at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and again at the Mannes School of Music in New York.

1956 - Composes Incantation (Piano Concerto No. 4). Works intensively on The Greek Passion, which he will complete in January of the following year. In May leaves the USA never to return. In October the revolution in Hungary is violently suppressed, and Martinu begins teaching as a 'composer in residence' at the American Academy in Rome.

1957 - Again receives a year's fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Paul and Maja Sacher invite him to Schönenberg near Basel, and he and Charlotte move there permanently in September. Composes the Piano Concerto No. 5.

1958 - Composes The Parables for orchestra and the opera Ariane. At the urging of Universal Edition and the opera company in Zürich begins work on a new version of The Greek Passion. In November his first major health crisis, leading to a stomach operation.

1959 - In January attends a production of Julietta in Wiesbaden, the first since the premiere in Prague. Perhaps in anticipation of his approaching end, he turns out one composition after another: finishes the second version of The Greek Passion and composes (to name the most important works) the Nonet, the Madrigaly (Madrigals, or 'Part-Song Book') for five solo voices, and Komorni hudba No. 1, plus the cantatas Mikes z hor (Mikes from the Mountains) and The Prophecy of  Isaiah. On 28 August dies in the canton hospital in Liestal near Basel. Is buried at Schönenberg; in 1979 his remains will be transported to his native Policka.