Leoš Janáček (, 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer,
music theorist
Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the " rudiments", that ...
,
folklorist
Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...
, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by
Moravia
Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The medieval and early ...
n and other
Slavic music, including Eastern European folk music, to create an original, modern musical style.
Born in
Hukvaldy
Hukvaldy () is a municipality and village in Frýdek-Místek District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,200 inhabitants. The municipality is known for the ruins of the third-largest castle in the Czech Republic, ...
, Janáček demonstrated musical talent at an early age and was educated in
Brno
Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...
, Prague,
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
, and Vienna. He then returned to live in Brno, where he married his pupil Zdenka Schulzová and devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research. His earlier musical output was influenced by contemporaries such as
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8September 18411May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predec ...
, but around the turn of the century he began to incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music, as well as his transcriptions of "speech melodies" of spoken language, to create a modern, highly original synthesis. The death of his daughter Olga in 1903 had a profound effect on his musical output; these notable transformations were first evident in the opera ''
Jenůfa'' (often called the "Moravian national opera"), which premiered in 1904 in Brno.
In the following years, Janáček became frustrated with a lack of recognition from Prague, but this was finally relieved by the success of a revised edition of ''Jenůfa'' at the
National Theatre in 1916, which gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as ''
Káťa Kabanová'' and ''
The Cunning Little Vixen'', the
Sinfonietta, the ''
Glagolitic Mass'', the rhapsody ''
Taras Bulba'', two string quartets, and other chamber works. Many of Janáček's later works were influenced by Czech and Russian literature, his
pan-Slavist sentiments, and his infatuation with
Kamila Stösslová.
After his death in 1928, Janáček's work was heavily promoted on the world opera stage by the Australian conductor
Charles Mackerras, who also restored some of his compositions to their original, unrevised forms. In his homeland he inspired a new generation of Czech composers including several of his students. Today he is considered one of the most important Czech composers, along with Dvořák and
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana ( ; ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded ...
.
Biography
1854–1872: Early life and family
Leoš Janáček, son of schoolmaster Jiří Janacek and
Amalie (née Grulichová) Janáčková, was born in
Hukvaldy
Hukvaldy () is a municipality and village in Frýdek-Místek District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,200 inhabitants. The municipality is known for the ruins of the third-largest castle in the Czech Republic, ...
, Moravia (then part of the
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...
) on 3 July 1854. He was born with six surviving siblings, and baptised as Leo Eugen. He was a gifted child in a family of limited means, and showed an early musical talent in choral singing. His father wanted him to follow the family tradition and become a teacher, but he deferred to Janáček's obvious musical abilities.
In 1865, young Janáček enrolled as a ward of the foundation of the
St Thomas's Abbey, Brno, where he took part in choral singing under
Pavel Křížkovský and occasionally played the organ. One of his classmates,
František Neumann, later described Janáček as an "excellent pianist, who played
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...
symphonies perfectly in a piano duet with a classmate, under Křížkovský's supervision". Křížkovský found him a problematic and wayward student but recommended his entry to the Prague Organ School. Janáček later remembered Křížkovský as a great conductor and teacher.
1873–1880: Education and early career
Janáček originally intended to study piano and organ but eventually devoted himself to composition. He wrote his first vocal compositions while choirmaster of the ''Svatopluk Artisan's Association'' (1873–1876). In 1874, he enrolled at the Prague organ school, under
František Skuherský and František Blažek. His student days in Prague were impoverished; with no piano in his room, he had to make do with a keyboard drawn on his tabletop. His criticism of Skuherský's performance of the Gregorian mass was published in the March 1875 edition of the journal ''Cecilie'' and led to his expulsion from the school, but Skuherský relented, and on 24 July 1875 Janáček graduated with the best results in his class.
On his return to Brno he earned a living as a music teacher, and conducted various amateur
choir
A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...
s. From 1876 he taught music at Brno's Teachers' Institute. Among his pupils there was Zdenka Schulzová, daughter of Emilian Schulz, the Institute director. She was later to be Janáček's wife. In 1876, he also became a piano student of Amálie Wickenhauserová-Nerudová, with whom he co-organized chamber concertos and performed in concerts over the following two years. In February 1876, he was voted Choirmaster of the ''Beseda brněnská'' Philharmonic Society. Apart from an interruption from 1879 to 1881, he remained its choirmaster and conductor until 1888.
From October 1879 to February 1880, he studied piano, organ, and composition at the
Leipzig Conservatory
The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig () is a public university in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatorium der Musik (Conservatory of Music), it is the oldest music ...
. While there, he composed ''Thema con variazioni'' for piano in B-flat, subtitled ''Zdenka's Variations''. Dissatisfied with his teachers (among them
Oscar Paul and Leo Grill), and denied a studentship with
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (, , 9October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano ...
in Paris, Janáček moved on to the
Vienna Conservatory, where from April to June 1880, he studied composition with
Franz Krenn. He concealed his opposition to Krenn's neo-romanticism, but he quit
Josef Dachs's classes and further piano study after he was criticised for his piano style and technique. He submitted a violin sonata (now lost) to a Vienna Conservatory competition, but the judges rejected it as being "too academic". Janáček left the conservatory in June 1880, disappointed despite Franz Krenn's very complimentary personal report. One of his classmates and friend in Vienna was composer and pianist
Josef Weiss.
1881–1899: Folkloristic work and early compositions
Janáček returned to
Brno
Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...
where, on 13 July 1881, he married his young pupil, Zdenka Schulzová.
In 1881, Janáček founded and was appointed director of the organ school, and held this post until 1919, when the school became the
Brno Conservatory. In the mid-1880s, Janáček began composing more systematically. Among other works, he created the ''Four male-voice choruses'' (1886), dedicated to Antonín Dvořák, and his first opera, ''
Šárka'' (1887–1888). During this period he began to collect and study folk music, songs and dances. In the early months of 1887, he sharply criticized the comic opera ''The Bridegrooms'', by Czech composer
Karel Kovařovic, in a ''Hudební listy'' journal review: "Which melody stuck in your mind? Which motif? Is this dramatic opera? No, I would write on the poster: 'Comedy performed together with music', since the music and the libretto aren't connected to each other". Janáček's review apparently led to mutual dislike and later professional difficulties when Kovařovic, as director of the
National Theatre in Prague, refused to stage Janáček's opera ''
Jenůfa''.
From the early 1890s, Janáček led the mainstream of folklorist activity in
Moravia
Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The medieval and early ...
and
Silesia
Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
, using a repertoire of folk songs and dances in orchestral and piano arrangements. Many of the tunes he used had been recorded by him but a second source was
Xavera Běhálková who sent him 70 to 100 tunes that she had gathered from around the
Haná
Haná or Hanakia ( or ''Hanácko'', or ''Hanakei'') is an ethnographic region in central Moravia in the Czech Republic.
Etymology
The region was named after the Haná (river), Haná River.
Description
Its core area is located along the ep ...
region of
central Moravia.
Most of his achievements in this field were published in 1899–1901 though his interest in folklore would be lifelong. His compositional work was still influenced by the declamatory, dramatic style of
Smetana and
Dvořák. He expressed very negative opinions on German neo-classicism and especially on
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
in the ''Hudební listy'' journal, which he founded in 1884. The death of his second child, Vladimír, in 1890 was followed by an attempted opera, ''Beginning of the Romance'' (1891) and the
cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian language, Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal music, vocal Musical composition, composition with an musical instrument, instrumental accompaniment, ty ...
''
Amarus'' (1897).
1900–1915: Difficult years
In the first decade of the 20th century, Janáček composed choral church music including ''
Otčenáš'' (Our Father, 1901), ''Constitues'' (1903) and ''Ave Maria'' (1904). In 1901, the first part of his piano cycle ''
On an Overgrown Path'' was published and gradually became one of his most frequently-performed works. In 1902, Janáček visited Russia twice. On the first occasion he took his daughter Olga to
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
, where she stayed to study Russian. Only three months later, he returned to Saint Petersburg with his wife because Olga had become very ill. They took her back to
Brno
Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...
, but her health worsened.
Janáček expressed his painful feelings for his daughter in a new work, his opera ''
Jenůfa'', in which the suffering of his daughter had transfigured into Jenůfa's.
When Olga died in February 1903, Janáček dedicated ''Jenůfa'' to her memory. The opera was performed in Brno in 1904, with reasonable success, but Janáček felt this was no more than a provincial achievement. He aspired to recognition by the more influential Prague opera, but ''Jenůfa'' was refused there (twelve years passed before its first performance in Prague). Dejected and emotionally exhausted, Janáček went to
Luhačovice spa to recover. There he met Kamila Urválková, whose love story supplied the theme for his next opera, ''
Osud'' (''Destiny'').
In 1905, Janáček attended a demonstration in support of a Czech university in Brno, where the violent death of František Pavlík, a young joiner, at the hands of the police inspired his piano sonata, ''
1. X. 1905'' (''From The Street''). The incident led him to further promote the anti-German and anti-Austrian ethos of the ''Russian Circle'', which he had co-founded in 1897 and which would be officially banned by the Austrian police in 1915. In 1906, he approached the Czech poet
Petr Bezruč, with whom he later collaborated, composing several choral works based on Bezruč's poetry. These included ''Kantor Halfar'' (1906), ''Maryčka Magdónova'' (1908), and ''70.000'' (1909).
Janáček's life in the first decade of the 20th century was complicated by personal and professional difficulties. He still yearned for artistic recognition from Prague. He destroyed some of his works, others remained unfinished. Nevertheless, he continued composing, and would create several remarkable choral, chamber, orchestral and operatic works, the most notable being the 1914 cantata, ''Věčné evangelium'' (''The Eternal Gospel''), ''
Pohádka'' (''Fairy tale'') for 'cello and piano (1910), the 1912 piano cycle ''V mlhách'' (''
In the Mists''), his
violin sonata, and his first symphonic poem ''Šumařovo dítě'' (''A Fiddler's Child''). His fifth opera, ''Výlet pana Broučka do měsíce'' (''
The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century''), composed from 1908 to 1917, has been characterized as the most "purely Czech in subject and treatment" of all of Janáček's operas.
1916–1928: Breakthrough and masterworks
In 1916, he started a long professional and personal relationship with theatre critic, dramatist and translator
Max Brod. In the same year, ''Jenůfa'', revised by Kovařovic, was finally accepted by the National Theatre. Its performance in Prague in 1916 was a great success, and brought Janáček his first acclaim.
Following the Prague première, he began a relationship with singer Gabriela Horváthová, which led to his wife Zdenka's attempted suicide and their "informal" divorce.
A year later (1917), he met
Kamila Stösslová, a young married woman 38 years his junior, who was to inspire him for the remaining years of his life. He conducted an obsessive and (on his side at least) passionate correspondence with her, of nearly 730 letters. From 1917 to 1919, deeply inspired by Stösslová, he composed ''
The Diary of One Who Disappeared''. As he completed its final revision, he began his next 'Kamila' work, the opera ''
Káťa Kabanová''.
In 1920, Janáček retired from his post as director of the
Brno Conservatory but continued to teach until 1925. In 1921, he attended a lecture by the Indian philosopher-poet
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
and used a Tagore poem as the basis for the chorus ''
The Wandering Madman'' (1922). In the early 1920s, Janáček completed his opera ''
The Cunning Little Vixen'', which had been inspired by a serialized novella by
Rudolf Těsnohlídek in the newspaper
Lidové noviny
''Lidové noviny'' (''People's News'', or ''The People's Newspaper'', ) is a daily newspaper published in Prague, the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily still in print, and a newspaper of record. It is a national news daily covering po ...
.
In Janáček's 70th year (1924), his biography was published by Max Brod, and he was interviewed by
Olin Downes for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. In 1925, he retired from teaching but continued composing and was awarded the first honorary doctorate to be given by
Masaryk University
Masaryk University (MU) (; ) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno, it now consists of ten faculties and 35,115 students. It is named after To ...
in Brno. In the spring of 1926, he created his
Sinfonietta, a monumental orchestral work, which rapidly gained wide critical acclaim. In the same year, he went to England at the invitation of
Rosa Newmarch. A number of his works were performed in London, including his first string quartet, the wind sextet ''Youth'', and his violin sonata. Shortly after, and still in 1926, he started to compose a setting to an
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
text. The result was the large-scale orchestral ''
Glagolitic Mass''.
The world première of Janáček's lyrical
Concertino for piano, two violins, viola, clarinet, French horn and bassoon took place in
Brno
Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...
in 1926.
Around the same time, Janáček began work on a comparable chamber work for an even more unusual set of instruments, the
Capriccio for piano left hand, flute, two trumpets, three trombones and tenor tuba, was written for pianist
Otakar Hollmann, who lost the use of his right hand during World War I. It premièred in Prague on 2 March 1928.

In 1927 – the year of the Sinfonietta's first performances in New York, Berlin and Brno – he began to compose his final operatic work, ''
From the House of the Dead'', the third act of which would be found on his desk after his death. In January 1928, he began his second string quartet, the ''
Intimate Letters'', his "manifesto on love". Meanwhile, the Sinfonietta was performed in London, Vienna and Dresden. In his later years, Janáček became an international celebrity. He became a member of the
Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1927, along with
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
and
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...
.
Death and funeral
In August 1928, he took an excursion to
Štramberk
Štramberk (; ) is a town in Nový Jičín District in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 3,500 inhabitants. It is known for the production of Štramberk ears. The historic centre of Štramberk is well preserved and ...
with Kamila Stösslová and her son Otto, but caught a chill which developed into pneumonia. He died on 12 August 1928 in
Ostrava
Ostrava (; ; ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava (river), Opa ...
, at the sanatorium of Dr. L. Klein, at the age of 74. He was given a large public funeral that included music from the last scene of his ''Cunning Little Vixen''. He was buried in the Field of Honour at the Central Cemetery, Brno.
Personality

Janáček worked tirelessly throughout his life. He led the organ school, was a professor at the teachers institute and grammar school in Brno, and collected transcriptions of folk songs, conversations and animal vocalisations,
all while composing. From an early age, he presented himself as an individualist and his firmly formulated opinions often led to conflict. He unhesitatingly criticized his teachers, who considered him a defiant and anti-authoritarian student, yet his own students found him to be strict and uncompromising.
Vilém Tauský, one of his pupils, described his encounters with Janáček as somewhat distressing for someone unused to his personality and noted that Janáček's characteristically staccato speech rhythms were reproduced in some of his operatic characters. In 1881, Janáček gave up his leading role with the ''Beseda brněnská'', as a response to criticism, but a rapid decline in ''Beseda''
's performance quality led to his recall in 1882.
His married life, settled and calm in its early years, became increasingly tense and difficult following the death of his daughter, Olga, in 1903. Years of effort in obscurity took their toll, and almost ended his ambitions as a composer: "I was beaten down", he wrote later, "My own students gave me advice – how to compose, how to speak through the orchestra". Success in 1916 – when
Karel Kovařovic finally decided to perform ''Jenůfa'' in Prague – brought its own problems. Janáček grudgingly resigned himself to the changes forced upon his work. Its success brought him into Prague's music scene and the attentions of soprano , who guided him through Prague society. Janáček was enchanted by her. On his return to Brno, he appears not to have concealed his new passion from Zdenka, who responded by attempting suicide. That Christmas, after Janáček suspected Zdenka of sending Horvátová an anonymous letter, Zdenka tried to instigate a divorce, but the couple agreed to settle for an "informal" divorce. From then on, until Janáček's death, they lived separate lives in the same household. Eventually Janáček lost interest in Horvátová.
In 1917, he began his lifelong, inspirational and unrequited passion for
Kamila Stösslová, who neither sought nor rejected his devotion. Janáček pleaded for first-name terms in their correspondence. In 1927, she finally agreed and signed herself "" (Your Kamila) in a letter, which Zdenka found. This revelation provoked a furious quarrel between Zdenka and Janáček, though their living arrangements did not change – Janáček seems to have persuaded her to stay. In 1928, the year of his death, Janáček confessed his intention to publicize his feelings for Stösslová.
Max Brod had to dissuade him. Janáček's contemporaries and collaborators described him as mistrustful and reserved, but capable of obsessive passion for those he loved. His overwhelming passion for Stösslová was sincere but verged upon self-destruction. Their letters remain an important source for Janáček's artistic intentions and inspiration. His letters to his long-suffering wife are, by contrast, mundanely descriptive. Zdenka seems to have destroyed all hers to Janáček. Only a few postcards survive.
Style
In 1874, Janáček became friends with
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8September 18411May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predec ...
, and began composing in a relatively traditional Romantic style. After his opera ''
Šárka'' (1887–1888), his style absorbed elements of
Moravia
Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The medieval and early ...
n and
Slovak folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...
.
His musical assimilation of the rhythm,
pitch contour and inflections of normal Czech speech (specifically
Moravian dialects
Moravian dialects () are the variety (linguistics), varieties of Czech language, Czech spoken in Moravia, a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic. There are more forms of the Czech language used in Moravia than in the rest of the C ...
) helped create the very distinctive vocal
melodies of his opera ''
Jenůfa'' (1904), whose 1916 success in Prague was the turning point in his career. In ''Jenůfa'', Janáček developed and applied the concept of "speech melodies" () to build a unique musical and dramatic style quite independent of "Wagnerian" dramatic method. He studied the circumstances in which "speech melodies" changed, the psychology and temperament of speakers and the coherence within speech, all of which helped render the dramatically truthful roles of his mature operas, and became one of the most significant markers of his style.
Janáček took these stylistic principles much farther in his vocal writing than
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (; ; ; – ) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five (composers), The Five." He was an innovator of Music of Russia, Russian music in the Romantic music, Romantic period and strove to achieve a ...
, and thus anticipates the later work of
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
. The stylistic basis for his later works originates in the period of 1904–1918, but Janáček composed most of his output – and his best known works – in the last decade of his life.
Much of Janáček's work displays great originality and individuality. It employs a vastly expanded view of
tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitch (music), pitches and / or chord (music), chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived ''relations'', ''stabilities'', ''attractions'', and ''directionality''.
In this hierarchy, the single pitch or ...
, uses unorthodox chord spacings and structures, and often,
modality
Modality may refer to:
Humanities
* Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
* Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales
* Modalit ...
: "there is no music without
key.
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...
abolishes definite key, and thus tonal
modulation
Signal modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform in electronics and telecommunication for the purpose of transmitting information.
The process encodes information in form of the modulation or message ...
.... Folksong knows of no atonality." Janáček features
accompaniment
Accompaniment is the musical part which provides the rhythmic and/or harmonic support for the melody or main themes of a song or instrumental piece. There are many different styles and types of accompaniment in different genres and styles of m ...
figures and patterns, with (according to
Jim Samson
Thomas James Samson, FBA (born 6 July 1946), commonly known as Jim Samson, is a musicologist and retired academic. Described as "a leading authority on the music of Chopin", his research extends to Romantic music, early 20th-century classical ...
) "the on-going movement of his music...similarly achieved by unorthodox means; often a discourse of short, 'unfinished'
phrases comprising constant repetitions of short
motifs which gather momentum in a cumulative manner." Janáček named these motifs "" (singular ) in his theoretical works. "" has no strict English equivalent, but
John Tyrrell, a leading specialist on Janáček's music, describes it as "a little flash of time, almost a kind of musical capsule, which Janáček often used in slow music as tiny swift motifs with remarkably characteristic rhythms that are supposed to pepper the musical flow." Janáček's use of these repeated motifs demonstrates a remote similarity to minimalist composers (
Charles Mackerras called Janáček "the first minimalist composer").
Inspiration
Folklore
Janáček was deeply influenced by folklore and Eastern European folk music, and by
Moravian folk music in particular, but not by the pervasive, idealized 19th century romantic folklore variant. He took a realistic, descriptive and analytic approach to the material.
Moravian folk songs, compared with their Bohemian counterparts, are much freer and more irregular in their metrical and rhythmic structure, and more varied in their melodic intervals. In his study of Moravian modes, Janáček found that the peasant musicians did not know the names of the modes and had their own ways of referring to them. He used the term "Moravian modulation" to describe the harmonic progression I–VII, which he considered a general characteristic of this region's folk music.
Janáček partly composed the original piano accompaniments to more than 150 folk songs, respectful of their original function and context, and partly used folk inspiration in his own works, especially in his mature compositions.
His work in this area was not stylistically imitative; instead, he developed a new and original musical aesthetic based on a deep study of the fundamentals of folk music.
Russia
Janáček's deep and lifelong affection for Russia and Russian culture represents another important element of his musical inspiration.
In 1888 he attended the Prague performance of
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...
's music, and met the older composer. Janáček profoundly admired Tchaikovsky, and particularly appreciated his highly developed musical thought in connection with the use of Russian folk motifs. Janáček's Russian inspiration is especially apparent in his later chamber, symphonic and operatic output.
He closely followed developments in Russian music from his early years, and in 1896, following his first visit to Russia, he founded a ''Russian Circle'' in Brno. Janáček read Russian authors in their original language. Their literature offered him an enormous and reliable source of inspiration, though this did not blind him to the problems of Russian society.
He was twenty-two years old when he wrote his first composition based on a Russian theme: a melodrama, ''Death'', set to
Lermontov's poem. In his later works, he often used literary models with sharply contoured plots.
In 1910 Zhukovsky's ''Tale of Tsar Berendei'' inspired him to write the ''Fairy Tale for Cello and Piano''. He composed the rhapsody ''Taras Bulba'' (1918) to
Gogol's short story, and five years later, in 1923, completed his first string quartet, inspired by
Tolstoy's ''
Kreutzer Sonata''. Two of his later operas were based on Russian themes: ''Káťa Kabanová'', composed in 1921 to
Alexander Ostrovsky's play ''The Storm'', and his last work, ''From the House of the Dead'', which transformed
Dostoevsky's vision of the world into an exciting collective drama.
Other composers
One of Janáček's early influences was Antonín Dvořák, whom he always deeply admired and to whom he dedicated some of his works. He rearranged part of Dvořák's
Moravian Duets for mixed choir with original piano accompaniment. In the early years of the 20th century, Janáček became increasingly interested in the music of other European composers. His opera ''Destiny'' was a response to another significant and famous work in contemporary Bohemia – ''
Louise'', by the French composer
Gustave Charpentier. The influence of
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini#Operas, his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he ...
is apparent particularly in Janáček's later works, for example in his opera ''Káťa Kabanová''. Although he carefully observed developments in European music, his operas remained firmly connected with Czech and Slavic themes.
Publications
Janáček published music theory works, essays and articles over a period of fifty years, from 1877 to 1927. He wrote and edited the journal, and contributed to many specialist music journals, such as ''Cecílie'', ''Hlídka'' and ''Dalibor''. He also completed several extensive studies, as (The Complete Harmony Theory), (On the Construction of Chords and Their Connections) and (Basics of Musical ''Sčasování''). In his essays and books, Janáček examined various musical topics, forms, melody and harmony theories, dyad and triad chords, counterpoint (or "opora", meaning "support") and devoted himself to the study of the mental composition. His theoretical works stress the Czech term "sčasování", Janáček's specific word for rhythm, which has relation to time ( in Czech), and the handling of time in music composition. He distinguished several types of rhythm (''sčasovka''): "" (sounding) – meaning any rhythm, "" (counting) – meaning smaller units measuring the course of rhythm; and "" (summing) – a long value comprising the length of a rhythmical unit. Janáček used the combination of their mutual action widely in his own works.
As well as his contributions to music journals, Janáček also wrote essays, reports, reviews, feuilletons, articles and books, regularly contributing such content to local newspapers in Brno. His work in this area comprises around 380 individual items. Janáček's literary legacy represents an important illustration of his life, public work and art.
Selected writings
A selection of Janáček's many publications is given below.
* (On the Perfect Image of the Dyad Chord) (1885–1886)
* (Bedřich Smetana: On Musical Forms) (1886)
* (On the Idea of Key) (1886–1887)
* (On the Scientificity of Harmony Theories) (1887)
* (On the Triad) (1887–1888)
* (A Word on Counterpoint) (1888)
* (A New Trend in Music Theory) (1894)
* (On the Construction of Chords and Their Progressions) (1896)
* (Modern Harmonic Music) (1907)
* (My Opinion of "sčasování" (Rhythm)) (1907)
* (On "sčasování" From practice) (1908)
* (The Weight of Real Motifs) (1910)
* (On the Course of Mental Compositional Work) (1916)
* (A Complete Theory of Harmony) (1920)
Folk music research
Janáček came from a region characterized by its deeply rooted
folk culture
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes mat ...
, which he explored as a young student under Pavel Křížkovský. His meeting with the folklorist and dialectologist
František Bartoš (1837–1906) was decisive in his own development as a folklorist and composer, and led to their collaborative and systematic collections of folk songs. Janáček became an important collector in his own right, especially of
Lachian,
Moravian Slovakia
Moravian Slovakia, also called Slovácko (, older ''Moravské Slovensko'') is a cultural region in the southeastern part of the Czech Republic. It lies in the historical region of Moravia, on the border with Slovakia (the Slovak region of Záho ...
n,
Moravian Wallachia
Moravian Wallachia (, or simply ''Valašsko''; ) is a mountainous ethnoregion located in the easternmost part of Moravia in the Czech Republic, near the Slovakia, Slovak border, roughly centered on the cities Vsetín, Valašské Meziříčí and ...
n and Slovakian songs. From 1879, his collections included transcribed speech intonations. He was one of the organizers of the ''Czech-Slavic Folklore Exhibition'', an important event in Czech culture at the end of 19th century. From 1905 he was President of the newly instituted ''Working Committee for Czech National Folksong in Moravia and Silesia'', a branch of the Austrian institute ''Das Volkslied in Österreich'' (Folksong in Austria), which was established in 1902 by the Viennese publishing house
Universal Edition
Universal Edition (UE) is an Austrian classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, it originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market. The firm soon expanded to become one of t ...
. Janáček was a pioneer and propagator of
ethnographic
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
photography in Moravia and Silesia. In October 1909 he acquired an
Edison phonograph and became one of the first to use phonographic recording as a folklore research tool. Several of these recording sessions have been preserved, and were reissued in 1998.
Criticism
Czech musicology at the beginning of the 20th century was strongly influenced by Romanticism, in particular by the styles of Wagner and Smetana. Performance practices were conservative, and actively resistant to stylistic innovation. During his lifetime, Janáček reluctantly conceded to Karel Kovařovic's instrumental rearrangement of ''Jenůfa'', most noticeably in the finale, in which Kovařovic added a more "festive" sound of trumpets and French horns, and doubled some instruments to support Janáček's "poor" instrumentation. The score of ''Jenůfa'' was later restored by
Charles Mackerras, and is now performed according to Janáček's original intentions.
Another important Czech musicologist,
Zdeněk Nejedlý, a great admirer of Smetana and later a communist Minister of Culture, condemned Janáček as an author who could accumulate a lot of material, but was unable to do anything with it. He called Janáček's style "unanimated", and his operatic duets "only speech melodies", without polyphonic strength. Nejedlý considered Janáček rather an amateurish composer, whose music did not conform to the style of Smetana. According to Charles Mackerras, he tried to destroy Janáček professionally. In 2006 Josef Bartoš, the Czech aesthetician and music critic, described Janáček as a "musical eccentric" who clung tenaciously to an imperfect, improvising style, but Bartoš appreciated some elements of Janáček's works and judged him more positively than Nejedlý.
Janáček's friend and collaborator
Václav Talich, former chief-conductor of the
Czech Philharmonic, sometimes adjusted Janáček's scores, mainly for their instrumentation and dynamics; some critics sharply attacked him for doing so. Talich re-orchestrated ''Taras Bulba'' and the Suite from ''Cunning Little Vixen'' justifying the latter with the claim that "it was not possible to perform it in the
Prague National Theatre unless it was entirely re-orchestrated". Talich's rearrangement rather emasculated the specific sounds and contrasts of Janáček's original, but was the standard version for many years. Charles Mackerras started to research Janáček's music in the 1960s, and gradually restored the composer's distinctive scoring. The critical edition of Janáček's scores is published by the Czech ''Editio Janáček''.
Legacy

Janáček belongs to a wave of
twentieth-century composers who sought greater realism and greater connection with everyday life, combined with a more all-encompassing use of musical resources. His operas, in particular, demonstrate the use of "speech"-derived melodic lines, folk and traditional material, and complex modal
musical argument. He would also inspire music theorists (among them
Jaroslav Volek) to place modal development at the same level of importance as
harmony
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...
in music. Along with Dvořák and Smetana, he is generally considered one of the most important Czech composers.
The operas of his mature period, ''
Jenůfa'' (1904), ''
Káťa Kabanová'' (1921), ''
The Cunning Little Vixen'' (1924), ''
The Makropulos Affair'' (1926) and ''
From the House of the Dead'' (after a
novel by Dostoevsky and premièred posthumously in 1930) are considered his finest works. The Australian conductor Sir
Charles Mackerras became very closely associated with Janáček's operas.
Janáček's chamber music, while not especially voluminous, includes works which are widely considered twentieth-century classics, particularly his two
string quartet
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
s:
Quartet No. 1, "The Kreutzer Sonata" inspired by
the Tolstoy novel, and the
Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters".
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera ( ; ; 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, but he was granted Czech citizenship ...
called these compositions the peak of Janáček's output.
Janáček established a school of composition in Brno. Among his notable pupils were
Jan Kunc,
Václav Kaprál,
Vilém Petrželka,
Jaroslav Kvapil,
Osvald Chlubna,
Břetislav Bakala and
Pavel Haas
Pavel Haas (21 June 189917 October 1944) was a Czech composer who was murdered during the Holocaust. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček's school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not l ...
. Most of his students neither imitated nor developed Janáček's style, which left him no direct stylistic descendants. According to Milan Kundera, Janáček developed a personal, modern style in relative isolation from contemporary modernist movements but was in close contact with developments in modern European music. His path towards the innovative "modernism" of his later years was long and solitary, and he achieved true individuation as a composer around his 50th year.
]
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". According to Mackerras, Janáček's use of whole-tone scale differs from that of
Claude Debussy, Debussy, his folk music inspiration is absolutely dissimilar from Dvořák's and Smetana's, and his characteristically complex rhythms differ from the techniques of the young
Stravinsky.
The French conductor and composer
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music.
Born in Montb ...
, who interpreted Janáček's operas and orchestral works, called his music surprisingly modern and fresh: "Its repetitive pulse varies through changes in rhythm, tone and direction." He described his opera ''From the House of the Dead'' as "primitive, in the best sense, but also extremely strong, like the paintings of
Léger, where the rudimentary character allows a very vigorous kind of expression".
The Czech conductor, composer and writer
Jaroslav Vogel wrote what was for a long time considered the standard biography of Janáček in 1958. It first appeared in German translation, and in the Czech original in 1963. The first English translation came out in 1962 and it was later re-issued, in a version revised by
Karel Janovický, in 1981. Charles Mackerras regarded it as his "Janáček bible".
Janáček's life has been featured in several films. In 1974 Eva Marie Kaňková made a short documentary ''Fotograf a muzika'' (The Photographer and the Music) about the Czech photographer
Josef Sudek and his relationship to Janáček's work. In 1983 the
Brothers Quay produced a
stop motion
Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...
animated film, ''Leoš Janáček: Intimate Excursions'', about Janáček's life and work, and in 1986 the Czech director
Jaromil Jireš made ''Lev s bílou hřívou'' (Lion with the White Mane), which showed the amorous inspiration behind Janáček's works. ''
In Search of Janáček'' is a Czech documentary directed in 2004 by Petr Kaňka, made to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Janáček's birth. An animated cartoon version of ''
The Cunning Little Vixen'' was made in 2003 by the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
, with music performed by the
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) is a German broadcast orchestra based in Berlin. The orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families ...
and conducted by
Kent Nagano
Kent George Nagano (born November 22, 1951) is an American conductor and opera administrator. Since 2015, he has been ''Generalmusikdirektor'' (GMD) of the Hamburg State Opera (until 2025).
Early life and education
Nagano was born in Berkeley, ...
. A re-arrangement of the opening of the ''Sinfonietta'' was used by the progressive rock band
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer (informally known as ELP) were an English progressive rock Supergroup (music), supergroup formed in London in 1970. The band consisted of Keith Emerson (keyboards) of The Nice, Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitars, producer) ...
for the song
"Knife-Edge" on their
1970 debut album.
The
Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra
The Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra (''Janáčkova filharmonie Ostrava'') is a Czech orchestra based in Ostrava. Named after composer Leoš Janáček, the orchestra performs its concerts at the City of Ostrava Cultural Centre.
History
The root ...
was established in 1954. Today the 116-piece ensemble is associated with mostly contemporary music but also regularly performs works from the classical repertoire. The orchestra is resident at the House of Culture
Vítkovice (Dům kultury Vítkovice) in
Ostrava
Ostrava (; ; ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava (river), Opa ...
, Czech Republic. The orchestra tours extensively and has performed in Europe, the U.S., Australia, Japan, South Korea and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
.
Asteroid
2073 Janáček, discovered in 1974 by
Luboš Kohoutek, is named in his honor. The
Haruki Murakami
is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...
novel ''
1Q84
is a novel written by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, first published in three volumes in Japan in 2009–2010. It covers a fictionalized year of 1984 in parallel with a "real" one. The novel is a story of how a woman named Aomame begins to ...
'' (2009/2010) uses Janáček's Sinfonietta as a recurring plot point.
Ostrava
Ostrava (; ; ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava (river), Opa ...
's
international airport
An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and feature longer runways and have faciliti ...
was renamed after Janáček in November 2006.
References
Citations
Sources
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Further reading
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* Štědroň, Miloš (1998). ''Leoš Janáček a hudba 20. století''. Brno: Nadace Universitas Masarykiana. .
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External links
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A detailed site on Leoš Janáček by Brno Tourist Information Office
{{DEFAULTSORT:Janacek, Leos
1854 births
1928 deaths
19th-century Czech classical composers
Folklorists from Austria-Hungary
19th-century Czech male musicians
20th-century Czech classical composers
20th-century Czech male musicians
Ballet composers
Composers for piano
Composers for pipe organ
Czech folk-song collectors
Czech opera composers
Czech Romantic composers
Deaths from pneumonia in Czechoslovakia
Czech male opera composers
People from Frýdek-Místek District
Musicians from the Margraviate of Moravia
Pupils of Carl Reinecke
University of Music and Theatre Leipzig alumni
Burials at Brno Central Cemetery
19th-century musicologists
Academic staff of Brno Conservatory
Composers from Austria-Hungary