Leoš Janáček

about

Leoš Janáček (3 July 1854 in Hukvaldy – 12 August 1928 in Ostrava) was a Czech composer. He was inspired by the broader field of Slavic folk music, weaving it into some of his greatest compositons: his Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass, Taras Bulba, string quartets and operas. Janáček is generally recognised as an inimitable composer, and one of his country's foremost talents. Janáček, the son of a schoolmaster, sang as a boy in the choir of the monastery in Brno. He later went to Prague to study music and made a living as a music teacher. He also conducted various amateur choirs. In 1881 he moved back to Brno, and founded the Organ School there, which was later to become the Brno Conservatory. As a young man Janáček became friends with Antonín Dvořák, and began composing in a relatively traditional romantic style, but after his opera Šárka (1881), his style began to change. He made a study of Moravian and Slovak folk music and used elements of it in his own music. He especially focused on studying and reproducing the rhythm and the pitch contour and inflections of normal Czech speech, which helped in creating the very distinctive vocal melodies in his opera Jenůfa (1904). Going much farther than Modest Mussorgsky and anticipating the later work of Béla Bartók in such styles, this became a distinguishing feature of his vocal writing (Samson 1977). When Jenůfa was given in Prague in 1916 it was a great success, and brought Janáček real acclaim for the first time. He was 62 at th

top songs

albums

Janáček: Piano Works

On an overgrown Path, In the mist, Piano sonata 1st October 1905 "From The Street", A Recollection

Sinfonietta (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Karel Ančerl)

Lachian Dances / Suite For Strings / Idyll For Strings (Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra, František Jílek)

String Quartets No.1 & 2 (Pavel Wallinger Quartet)

Janáček: Sinfonietta

Janáček: On an Overgrown Path

Good Night! - Janáček: On an Overgrown Path, Book 1: No. 7, Good Night!

Janáček: String Quartets Nos. 1 "Kreutzer Sonata" & 2 "Intimate Letters"

Janácek: Piano Works

Glagolitic Mass (Glagolská mše) - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic Choir, soloists, conductor Karel Ančerl

Janacek, L.: On the Overgrown Path / In the Mists / From the Street

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