Leoš Janáček

• Leoš Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by contemporaries such as Antonín Dvořák.

• His later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident is the opera Jenůfa, which was premiered in 1904 in Brno. The success of Jenůfa (often called the "Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include the symphonic poem Sinfonietta, the oratorio Glagolitic Mass, the rhapsody Taras Bulba, two string quartets, other chamber works and operas. Along with Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana, he is considered as one of the most important Czech composers.

Leoš Janáček, son of schoolmaster Jiří and Amalie, was born in Hukvaldy (part of the Austrian Empire). He was a gifted child and showed an early musical talent in choral singing. In 1865 young Janáček enrolled as a ward of the foundation of the Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno, where he took part in choral singing under Pavel Křížkovský and occasionally played on organ. Křížkovský found him as problematic and wayward student but recommended his entry to the Prague Organ School. Janáček later remembered Křížkovský as a great conductor and teacher.

Beginnings

• Janáček originally intended to study piano and organ but he devoted himself to composition. He wrote his first vocal compositions while choirmaster of the Svatopluk Artisan's Association. On 24 July 1875 Janáček graduated with the best results in his class. On his return to Brno he earned as a music teacher and conducted various amateur choirs. From 1876 he taught music at Brno's Teachers Institute. There was Zdenka Schulzová, daughter of the Institute director. She was later to be Janáček's wife. In February 1876 he was voted as choirmaster of the Beseda brněnská Philharmonic Society.

• From October 1879 to February 1880 he studied piano, organ, and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory later at Vienna Conservatory, but he was criticised for his piano style and technique so he returned to Brno and married Zdenka Schultzová, later they had 2 children Olga and Vladimír, but he died when he was 2 and later his daughter died too. Janáček expressed his painful feelings for his daughter in a new work, his opera Jenůfa. When Olga died in February 1903, he dedicated Jenůfa to her memory. In 1881 Janáček was appointed as director of the organ school, and held this post until 1919, when the school became the Brno Conservatory.

Jenůfa

• He created the Four male-voice choruses, dedicated to Antonín Dvořák, and his first opera Šárka. He was at Russia twice, for inspiration for his compositions. After accepted his Jenůfa by the National Theatre in Prague (1916) he composed next five operas and two violins quartets. Because he had mistress and later, he had a son with her, Zdenka wanted leave him. In 1920 he retired from his post as director of Brno Conservatory, but still continued to teach and composed.

National Theatre in Prague

• Sir Charles Mackerras, the Australian conductor who helped promote Janáček's works on the world's opera stages, described his style as "... completely new and original, different from anything else ... and impossible to pin down to any one style". In 1925 he was awarded a first honorary doctore to be given by Masaryk University. In 1927 – the year of his opera Sinfonietta's first performances in New York, Berlin and Brno – he began to compose his final operatic work- from the House of the Dead. In this same year he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. On 12 August 1928 he died into pneumonia in Ostrava.

Masterpieces

Operas: Šárka, Her Stepdaughter (Jenůfa), Destiny, The Cunning Little Vixen, Makropulus Affair, From the House of the DeadOrchestral, vokal and choral: Glagolitic Mass, Lachian dances, Moravian dances, Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, AmarusChamber and instrumental: Youth, Violin Sonata, String Quartet No. 1 Krautzer Sonata, String Quartet No. 2 Intimate Letters