Leoš Janáček
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(1854 – 1928)
Leoš Janáček (3 July 1854 in Hukvaldy, Moravia – 12 August 1928 in Ostrava) was a Czech composer. He was inspired by Czech, Moravian and 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).
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).
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On an overgrown Path, In the mist, Piano sonata 1st October 1905 "From The Street",…
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Sinfonietta (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Karel Ančerl)
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Lachian Dances / Suite For Strings / Idyll For Strings (Brno State Philharmonic…
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String Quartets No.1 & 2 (Pavel Wallinger Quartet)
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