Janáček, Leoš

• Period: Modern (1910-1949)
• Country: Czechoslovakia
• Born: July 03, 1854 in Hukvaldy, Moravia, Czechoslovakia
• Died: August 12, 1928 in Moravská Ostrava, Czechoslovakia
• Genres: Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Keyboard Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Vocal Music

Biography

Leos Janácek (1854-1928) is regarded as the greatest Czech composer of the early twentieth century. In his early works, which included the opera Sárka (1888), and numerous vocal and instrumental works, Janácek followed a traditional, Romantic idiom, typical of late nineteenth century music. Having completed Sárka, however, Janácek immersed himself in the folk music of his native Moravia, gradually developing an original compositional style. Eschewing regular metrical phrasing, Janácek developed a declamatory method of setting the voice that follows the natural rhythmic patterns of the Czech language. Characteristically, Janácek allowed these patterns to inform the music itself. In addition, Janácek's harmonies, forms and orchestration are highly idiosyncratic. His music favors repetitive patterns, often set in stark contrast to longer, more lyrical, lines, or large blocks of sound. Dramatic effects are attained with minimal thematic or contrapuntal elaboration. The result is music of great rhythmic drive, sharp contrasts, and an intricate, montage-like texture. Exemplifying Janácek's radical stylistic transformation is his tragic opera Jenufa (1904), based on a story of jealousy, murder, and innocence.

At first unknown outside of Moravia, where he was recognized primarily as a teacher, conductor, and champion of folk music, Janácek first gained national and international fame with the Prague production of Jenufa in 1916. The success of Jenufa in Prague tremendously energized the composer, who, in his sixties, experienced an astonishing creative surge, composing several masterpieces. Janácek's euphoric state of mind could be attributed to two factors. First of all, after the foundation, in 1918, of the Czechoslovak state, Janácek became a national celebrity. The second, and perhaps more important, factor, was Janácek's affection for Kamila Stösslová, a considerably younger married woman. While his ardor was not reciprocated, Janácek's passion for Kamila undoubtedly simulated his creativity. Janácek's modern fame rests on his four last operas, Kát'a Kabanová (1921), The Cunning Little Vixen (1924), The Makropulos Affair (1926) and the posthumously premiered From the House of the Dead (1930). What makes these works outstanding is Janácek's profound dramatic sense, which allows his operas, in spite of their brevity, to effectively communicate a complex plot. The dramatic effect is heightened by the composer's ability to adapt his music to the tonal and rhythmic characteristics of the Czech language. The last four operas in particular are perfectly paced for the right dramatic impact. In addition, Janácek drew on the inner resources of music and speech to convey complex feelings and emotional states to his listeners. Janácek's extraordinary power in translating profound psychological insights into music truly comes to the fore in The Makropoulos Affair, based on a work by Karel Capek, a story about a woman with the gift of eternal youth. In 1926, Janácek, whose early interest in Moravian folk music developed into an effort to grasp Slavic musical traditions in their totality, composed his Glagolitic Mass, a work aiming to express the profound spiritual bonds underlying the seemingly disparate cultural traditions of the Slavic nations (the term "glagolitic" refers to one of the early alphabets of Old Slavic). During his final creative period, Janácek also composed a small number of exceptional chamber works, including the two string quartets and the Sinfonietta. In addition to his work as a composer, Janácek actively contributed to his country's musical life as a teacher, critic, and organizer. Founder of the Brno Organ School (later to become the Brno Conservatory), director of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, teacher at the State Conservatory of Prague, and initiator of many musical festivals, Janácek greatly enriched Eastern European music education and culture. ~ Zoran Minderovic, All Music Guide

(b Hukvaldy, 3 July 1854; d Moravská Ostrava, 12 Aug 1928). Czech composer. He was a chorister at the Augustinian ‘Queen' s’ Monastery in Old Brno, where the choirmaster Pavel Křižkovský took a keen interest in his musical education. After completing his basic schooling he trained as a teacher and, except for a period at the Prague Organ School, he spent 1872-9 largely as a schoolteacher and choral conductor in Brno. In 1879 he enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he developed his interest in composition under the strict and systematic supervision of Leo Grill. After a month in Vienna he returned to Brno in May 1880; there he became engaged to one of his pupils, Zdenka Schulzová, whom he married in July 1881.

In Brno, Janáček took up his former activities, and he also founded and directed an organ school and edited a new musical journal, Hudební listy. After composing his first opera, Šárka, he immersed himself in collecting and studying Moravian folk music, which bore fruit in a series of orchestral suites and dances and in a one-act opera, The Beginning of a Romance. This was favourably received in 1894, but Janáček withdrew it after six performances and set to work on Jenůfa.

During the long period of composition of Jenůfa (1894-1903), Janáček rethought his approach to opera and to composition in general. He largely abandoned the number opera, integrated folksong firmly into his music and formulated a theory of ‘speech-melody’, based on the natural rhythms and the rise and fall of the Czech language, which was to influence all his ensuing works and give them a particular colour through their jagged rhythms and lines. Jenůfa was soon followed by other operatic ventures, but his reputation in Brno was as a composer of instrumental and choral music and as director of the Organ School. Outside Moravia he was almost unknown until the Prague première of Jenůfa in 1916. The creative upsurge of a man well into his 60s is explained partly by the success of Jenůfa in Prague and abroad, partly by his patriotic pride in the newly acquired independence of his country, and perhaps most of all by his passionate, though generally distant, attachment to Kamila Stösslová, the young wife of an antique dealer in Pisek, Bohemia.

Between 1919 and 1925 Janáček composed three of his finest operas, all on subjects with special resonances for him: Katya Kabanova with its neglected wife who takes a lover, The Cunning Little Vixen with its sympathetic portrayal of animals (and particularly the female fox), and The Makropoulos Affair with the ‘ageless’ woman who fascinates all men. Each was given first in Brno and soon after in Prague. His 70th birthday was marked by a doctorate from the Masaryk University in Brno. Early in 1926 he wrote the Sinfonietta for orchestra, characteristic in its blocks of sound and its forceful repetitions, and later that year his most important choral work, the Glagolitic Mass. While performance of his music carried his fame abroad, he started work on his last opera, From the House of the Dead, which he did not live to see performed. It received its première in April 1930 in a version prepared by his pupils Břetislav Bakala and Osvald Chlubna.

Janáček's reputation outside Czechoslovakia and German-speaking countries was first made as an instrumental composer. He has since come to be regarded not only as a Czech composer worthy to be ranked with Smetana and Dvořák, but also as one of the most substantial and original opera composers of the 20th century.

works:
Operas

• Šárka (early, perf. 1925)
• The Beginning of a Romance (1894)
• Jenůfa (1904)
• Osud (1903-7, perf. 1958)
• The Excursions of Mr Brouček (1920)
• Katya Kabanova (1921)
• The Cunning Little Vixen (1924)
• The Makropoulos Affair (1926)
• From the House of the Dead (1930)

Vocal music

• Glagolitic Mass (1926)
• Diary of One who Disappeared, cycle (1919)
• cantatas, choruses, sacred pieces

Orchestral music

• Taras Bulba (1918)
• Sinfonietta (1926)

Piano music

• Sonata 1.x.1905 (1905)
• On the Overgrown Path (1908)
• In the mists (by 1912)

Instrumental music

• Str Qt no.1, ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ (1923)
• Str Qt no.2, ‘Intimate Letters’ (1928)
• Mládí [Youth], fl/pic, ob, cl, b cl, hn, bn (1924)

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The Czech composer Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) was one of the most important opera composers of the first half of the 20th century.

Leoš Janáček, one of 14 children, was born in an obscure village in Moravia, where his father was an impoverished schoolteacher and church organist. Leoš was sent as a choirboy to the St. Augustine Abbey, Brno, at the age of 10, where he received a rudimentary musical education and learned to play the organ. With the help of a patron, he went to Prague in 1874 to enter the organ school with the intention of becoming an organist and church choir director. His interest in composition grew, and study at the conservatories in Leipzig and Vienna followed. By the time he was 25, he had acquired a solid technique, although he had not written any compositions of consequence.

In 1875 Janáček returned to Brno, where he spent the rest of his life. He worked indefatigably to make this provincial city into a musical center. He conducted choirs, established a symphony orchestra, and founded an organ school to train church musicians. Frank and impolitic, he alienated himself from the musical establishment in Prague, and thus his recognition as a composer was delayed.

Janáček became interested in collecting folk songs and in studying the relationships between language and music. He wrote down, in musical notation, sentences and expressions he heard, and he was fascinated with animal sounds.

Not until he was almost 50 did Janáček achieve musical maturity in his opera Jenufa (1903). First produced in Brno, it eventually received performances in Prague, Vienna (in German), cities in Germany, and New York City at the Metropolitan Opera in 1924. The last 20 years of his life were very fruitful and filled with honors. His operas Kata Kabanova (1921), The Cunning Little Fox (1924), The Makropolous Case (1925), and The House of the Dead (1928) were widely performed in the post-World War II period.

Janáček's opera texts show a wide variety of types, from the animal fairy-tale atmosphere of The Cunning Little Fox to the gloom of Fyodor Dostoevsky's House of the Dead. Jenufa and Kata Kabanova are in the tradition of verismo, that is, realistic, opera: they are stories of simple, rural people involved in violent emotional experiences. The outstanding traits of these operas are the vividness of emotional expression and the avoidance of typically operatic conventions. The melodic lines proceed in lines close to speech, while the orchestra uses leitmotivs in a free manner. All the operas, no matter how different in subject, express the composer's compassion for the human condition.

Janáček also wrote a number of important instrumental compositions. These include two String Quartets (1923, 1928), Taras Bulba for orchestra (1924), the Suite for Wind Instruments (1924), and numerous songs and piano pieces. His Glagolitic (Slavonic) Mass (1927) achieved international recognition.

Further Reading

Hans Hollander, Leoš Janáček: His Life and Work (trans. 1963), is a sympathetic study of the man and his music. See also Rosa Newmarch, The Music of Czechoslovakia (1942), and Jaroslav Šeda, Leoš Janáček (trans. 1956).

Additional Sources

Horsbrugh, Ian, Leoš Janáček, the field that prospered, Newton Abbot: David & Charles; New York: Scribner's, 1981.

Janáček, Leoš, Janáček, leaves from his life, New York: Taplinger Pub. Co., 1982.

Susskind, Charles, Janáček and Brod, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

Vogel, Jaroslav, Leoš Janáček, a biography, London: Orbis Pub., 1981.

Janáček, Leoš (b Hukvaldy, 3 July 1854, d Ostrava, 12 Aug. 1928). Czech composer. Although he wrote no music for the ballet, his concert music has been used by many choreographers. Tudor choreographed his First String Quartet for the Juilliard School in 1971; Lynn Seymour his Intimate Letters for Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1968. Kylián has frequently used his music, including Intimate Letters for Swedish television in 1980, Glagolitic Mass for Netherlands Dance Theatre (1979), Sinfonietta for NDT (1978), and various piano pieces for Return to a Strange Land (Stuttgart Ballet 1975, revived Royal Ballet 1984).

Janáček, Leoš (1854–1928), Czech composer, much influenced by the language of his native Moravia, and of its folk songs, which he collected. Renowned for his highly distinctive operas, including The Cunning Little Vixen (1924), adapted by the composer from a novel by the Czech writer Rudolf Tesnohlídek (first published in serial form in a daily newspaper, as accompaniment to line drawings by the artist Stanislav Lolek). The fantastical story of the life and exploits of a vixen cub involves a host of vividly observed human and animal characters, including parts written specifically for children's voices and several ballet scenes.

— Stephen Benson

Janáček, Leoš (lĕ'ôsh yä'nächĕk) , 1854–1928, Czech composer, theorist, and collector of Slavic folk music. He studied in Prague and Leipzig and founded a music conservatory at Brno in 1881. His works include the operas Jenufa (1904), his best-known work; Katia Kabanova (1921), after Ostrovsky's Storm; The Makropulos Affair (1926); and From the House of the Dead (1930), after a novel by Dostoyevsky. Also of note are Janáček's song cycle, The Diary of One Who Vanished (1916–19), and his Glagolitic Festival Mass (1926), with a text in Old Slavonic.