Leoš Janáček
Late Romantic · 1854–1928
Leoš Janáček spent most of his life as a provincial music teacher, and became famous in his sixties. Born in 1854 in a Moravian village, he settled in Brno, where he taught, conducted, founded an organ school, and collected the folk songs of the region. He also filled notebooks with the rise and fall of ordinary speech, convinced that the way people talk reveals the way they feel, and he built his melodies from those speech patterns.
The turning point came in 1916, when his opera Jenůfa, long confined to Brno, was finally staged in Prague and triumphed. Energized by success and by an intense late-life attachment to a much younger married woman, Kamila Stösslová, he wrote most of his best-known music after age 62: operas, two string quartets, and the blazing Sinfonietta. He died in 1928.
Start with the Sinfonietta, which opens with a wall of fanfares, then the opera Jenůfa when you're ready for his raw, humane storytelling.
69 works in the catalog, across 5 genres. Log what you listen to with Opus, the classical music journal for iPhone.
Chamber
- Capriccio for piano, flute, and brass ensemble, JW VII/12, "Vzdor', 'Defiance"
- Mládí, suite for wind sextet, JW VII/10
- String Quartet no. 1, JW VII/8, "Kreutzer"
- String Quartet no. 2, JW VII/13, "Listy duverné,' 'Intimate Letters"
- Violin Sonata, JW VII/7
- Concertino for piano, 2 violins, viola, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, JW VII/11
- Dumka, for violin and piano, JW VII/4
- Pochod Modrácku, JW VII/9
- Pohádka, for cello and piano, JW VII/5
- Presto for Cello and Piano, JW VII/6
- Romance for Violin and Piano in E major, JW VII/3
Keyboard
- In the Mists, JW VIII/22
- On an Overgrown Path, JW VIII/17 Piano cycle
- Piano Sonata, JW VIII/19, "Zulice, 1.X.05,' 'From the Street, 1 October, 1905"
- 3 Moravian Dances
- 15 Moravian Folk Songs, JW VIII/23
- Music for Club-swinging Exercises, JW VIII/13
- Nur Blindes Schiksal, for piano
- Pohadka, for cello and piano
- Reminiscence, JW VIII/32
- Skladby pro varhany, JW VIII/7
- Theme and Variations in B flat major, JW VIII/6, "Zdenciny variace,' 'Zdenka Variations"
- Varyto, for organ, JW VIII/3
- Vzpomínka, JW VIII/32
Orchestral
- Sinfonietta, JW VI/18
- Taras Bulba JW VI/15
- 6 Lachian Dances, JW VI/17
- Idyll for string orchestra, JW VI/3
- Jealousy, JW VI/10
- Jenufa, suite from the opera
- Káta Kabanová, suite from the opera
- Moravian dances, JW VI/7
- Schluck und Jau, incidental music, JW 9/11
- Suite, op. 3, JW VI/6
- Suite for String Orchestra, JW VI/2
- The Cunning Little Vixen
- The Excursions of Mr. Broucek, suite from the opera
- The Fiddler's Child, ballad JW VI/14
- The Makropulos Case, suite from the opera
Stage
- Jenufa, JW I/4 Opera
- Káta Kabanová, JW I/8 Opera
- The Cunning Little Vixen, JW I/9 Opera
- From the House of the Dead, JW I/11 Opera
- Osud, JW I/5 Opera
- The Excursions of Mr. Broucek, JW1/6-7 Opera
- The Makropulos Case, JW I/10 Opera
Vocal
- Glagolitic Mass, JW III/9 For soloists, double chorus, orchestra, and organ
- 3 Male-Voice Choruses, JW IV/19
- 4 Male-Voice Choruses, JW IV/17
- 4 Moravian Male-Voice Choruses, JW IV/28
- 10 Silesian Songs from Helena Salichová's collection, JW V/13
- 18 Nursery Rhymes for 9 voices and 10 instruments, JW V/17
- 70,000, for soloists and male chorus, JW IV/36
- Ach vojna, vojna, folk song for male chorus, JW IV/17/3
- Ceská legie, for tenor, bass and male chorus, JW IV/42
- Coz ta nase bríza, JW IV/22
- Elegie na smrt dcery Olgy, cantata for tenor, chorus and piano, JW IV/30
- Kacena divoká, folk song for chorus and piano, JW IV/18
- Kantor Halfar, for male chorus, JW IV/33
- Láska opravdivá, folk song for male chorus, JW IV/8
- Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs, 53 folksong for voice and piano, JW V/2
- Orání, folk song for male chorus, JW IV/1
- Perina, folk song for male chorus, JW IV/38
- Potulný sílenec, for soprano, tenor, baritone and male chorus, JW IV/43
- The Diary of One Who Disappeared, song cycle for mezzo-soprano, tenor, female chorus, and piano, JW V/12
- The Lord's Prayer, for chorus, harp, and organ, JW IV/29
- Vecne evangelium JW III/8
- Vlcí stopa, for soprano, female chorus and piano, JW IV/39
- Vínek, folk song for male chorus, JW IV/31
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