Background
Leos Janácek, one of 14 children, was born on July 3, 1854 in an obscure village in Moravia, where his father was an impoverished schoolteacher and church organist.
(When we think today of the legacy of Leo Janáek (1854-192...)
When we think today of the legacy of Leo Janáek (1854-1928), it is the late masterpieces that most readily come to mind. However, the staple repertoire for string orchestras includes Janáeks exquisitely crafted youthful compositions: Suite and Idyll (c. 1880). His earliest compositions come from his student years, with Znlka (1875), for four violins, being one of the most interesting. The discs final work, in an arrangement for string orchestra, is the great First String Quartet (1923).
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(In the wake of highly acclaimed recording of Janáceks sym...)
In the wake of highly acclaimed recording of Janáceks symphonic works (Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, etc., SU 4131; Orchestral Choice, Gramophone, August 2013), Tomá Netopil and the Prague Radio Symphony now focus on the composers vocal-instrumental pieces. The Glagolitic Mass is a generally known work, yet not in the composers original September 1927 version, as it was performed at the premiere in Brno, which has been recorded for the very first time for this CD. It is fascinating to observe how many distinct traits of Janáceks expressive musical language vanished from the work as a result of its later modifications. The Eternal Gospel, on the other hand, is virtually unknown worldwide (the only previous Supraphon recording was made almost fifty years ago). Janácek was inspired by, and created the libretto on the basis of, Jaroslav Vrchlickýs poem about the medieval monk Joachim de Fiore. Janácek worked on the piece concurrently with the opera The Excursion of Mr. Broucek to the Moon and completed it in the spring of 1914, a few months prior to the outbreak of WWI.
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Leos Janácek, one of 14 children, was born on July 3, 1854 in an obscure village in Moravia, where his father was an impoverished schoolteacher and church organist.
Leos 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.
From October 1879 to February 1880 he studied piano, organ, and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory.
In 1925 he retired from teaching, but continued composing and was awarded the first honorary doctorate to be given by Masaryk University in Brno.
By the time he was 25, he had acquired a solid technique, although he had not written any compositions of consequence.
In 1875 Janácek 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. Janácek 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 Janácek 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. Janácek'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. Janácek 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.
He died on August 12, 1928 in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
(When we think today of the legacy of Leo Janáek (1854-192...)
(In the wake of highly acclaimed recording of Janáceks sym...)
(2012 Japanese pressing Blu-spec CD reissue. Nippon Columbia.)
He became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1927, along with Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith.
On July 13, 1881 he married his young pupil Zdenka Schulzová, daughter of Emilian Schulz, the Institute director.