Miloš Štědroň: Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (July 3, 1854, Hukvaldy – August 12, 1928, Ostrava)
Composer, educator, theorist, critic, folklorist, and conductor, Leoš Janáček came from a family of teachers with a generations-long dedication to music. His father, Jiří Janáček (1815–1866), was a school principal and organist. In Hukvaldy, Leoš attended elementary school from 1859 to 1865, and in 1865, with the support of composer Pavel Křížkovský, a friend and compatriot of his father, he became a foundation scholar at the Old Brno Monastery. Under Křížkovský’s guidance, he received thorough training in various musical disciplines.
The Old Brno Monastery served as a hub for significant cultural and scientific endeavors for decades, functioning as a substitute for a university in Brno. Alongside Cyril Napp, figures like Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics and later a world-renowned scientist, and poet-philosopher František Matouš Klácel were active there, inspiring the young Janáček with their scholarly and artistic pursuits.
At the monastery, Janáček gained a comprehensive musical education through Křížkovský’s mentorship. Concurrently, he studied at the Old Brno municipal secondary school (1866–69) and later at the teachers’ training institute, graduating on July 20, 1872. There, he worked as an assistant teacher and music instructor at the institute’s practice school. In 1873–74, he attended lectures on Czech language and literature by Antonín Matzenauer at the Moravian Regional Academy and passed a qualification exam for elementary and civic schools in 1874. He furthered his musical education at the Prague Organ School, where he was influenced by composer-theorist František Zdeněk Skuherský and music theorist František Blažek. He completed state exams in singing, piano, and organ in 1875 and in violin in 1878. In 1876, he became a temporary music teacher at the Brno Teachers’ Institute, where director Emilián Schulz recognized his talent and supported his pursuit of education, especially after Janáček grew close to his family and began teaching his daughter Zdeňka piano. From 1877–78, Janáček also taught at the Slavic Institute for Female Teachers.
From approximately 1872 to 1885, Janáček substituted for Pavel Křížkovský in the choir loft of the Old Brno Monastery. Additionally, from February 1873 to October 1876, he served as choirmaster of the Svatopluk Craftsmen’s Association, and from 1876 to 1888, he led the Brno Beseda.
Following Křížkovský’s example, he guided the ensemble toward demanding interpretive challenges (e.g., Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis). Influenced by his piano teacher Amálie Nerudová-Wickenhauserová, he explored contemporary piano and chamber music literature, particularly the conservative Russian tradition (Rubinstein), even considering studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After this plan failed, likely influenced by personal motivations, he pursued further musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory (October 1, 1879 – February 25, 1880) and later in Vienna (April to June 1880). Upon returning from Vienna, he was appointed a permanent music teacher at the Teachers’ Institute, where he worked from 1880 to 1904. His most systematic pedagogical and organizational contributions came as director of the Organ School, established and funded by the Association for the Advancement of Church Music in Moravia based on his proposal. As director, he implemented his theoretical views, developed his harmonic teachings and theory of rhythm, and significantly raised the educational standards for students. During his tenure at the Organ School (1881–1919), he published two music theory works: On the Composition of Chords and Their Connections (1897) and Complete Theory of Harmony (1911, 1912, 1920). From the outset of his pedagogical career, Janáček aimed for original theoretical concepts, developing his own theories of harmony and rhythm. From 1897, he incorporated so-called “speech melodies” into his daily practice, notating vocal and sonic situations captured in real-life settings—often on streets, during lectures, in transportation, shops, markets, or walks. His first creative period builds on his studies at the Prague Organ School and stems from a collection of autographed compositions from 1874–75, containing 12 works—6 sacred and 6 instrumental, including 3 for organ.
The second half of the 1870s marked intense compositional activity for Janáček, with a variety of forms. Lost works prevent a precise definition of his compositional profile, but compared to Dvořák, he had less experience and facility with instrumentation at an age when Dvořák was already a mature symphonist. This was partly due to Janáček’s multifaceted pursuits (choirmaster, conductor, composer, theorist, critic with aesthetic and psychological interests). The early 1880s can be seen as either a transitional period toward larger syntheses (opera) or a culmination of earlier efforts, presenting Janáček as a critically oriented young formalist shaped by his monastic environment. The first half of the 1880s saw reduced compositional activity in favor of organizational, choirmaster, conducting, pedagogical, and critical work.
From December 1884 to June 1888, Janáček intensively edited Hudební listy, publishing over 100 reviews, essays, and studies. Here, he established himself as a critic and music theorist. By the end of this period, he began addressing a theme that would become central to his work in the 1890s—folk songs and music.
Simultaneously with his initial engagement with folklorism, Janáček attempted his first opera. The three-act Šárka, based on Julius Zeyer’s libretto, was inspired by Zeyer’s drama published on January 1, January 15, and February 1, 1887, in Česká Thálie. Unbeknownst to Janáček, Zeyer had conceived Šárka as a libretto for Antonín Dvořák. Janáček sent the first version of Šárka to Dvořák for review as a piano reduction, and Dvořák confirmed receipt on August 6, 1887, noting that its evaluation required significant time (Antonín Dvořák. Correspondence and Documents. Critical Edition. Editors: Milan Kuna, Ludmila Bradová, Antonín Čubr, Markéta Hallová, and Jitka Slavíková, Volume 2, Sent Correspondence (1885–1889), Editio Supraphon, Prague 1988, p. 261). Šárka marked the culmination of Janáček’s first creative period, during which he was still establishing his position in Czech music. From the late 1880s, he developed a profound inclination toward folklorism in all its forms. Introduced to the study of Moravian folk songs by dialectologist František Bartoš, whom he met at the Slavic Gymnasium in 1886, this pursuit dominated all aspects of his compositional activity for over a decade, lingering even during the completion of his third opera, Jenůfa. While Janáček as a composer moved away from strict folklorism after 1900 toward a deeper synthesis of impressionism, verismo, and expressionism, as a folklorist, he maintained a lifelong interest in Moravian folk songs and music.
Folklorism
Janáček’s interest in Moravian folk songs and music from the late 1880s transcended typical artistic curiosity of the time. He engaged with folk music in eastern Moravian locales through sustained contact with this musical subculture in its native environment. This over-a-decade immersion distanced him from stylistic debates in Czech music, enabling him to return to composition after 1900, in his late forties, equipped with his speech-melody method, informed by his rhythm theory. The most striking outcome of this folkloristic period was his heightened ability to instantly notate heard musical stimuli. Rapid notation of folk songs and music in the field likely led to his speech-melody method and increased sensitivity to vocal expressions.
A defining trait of Janáček’s folkloristic period was his complete absorption in folk culture and its environment, relinquishing emphasis on his own authorial role. His approach to folklore gradually shed idealizing tendencies, seeking its complexities. His folk song research led to broader studies of the folk environment, focusing on the social issues of folklore bearers, examining folk music in daily and annual cycles, and analyzing its functions dynamically within this context.
From the early 1890s, Janáček encountered the first wave of Italian verismo, favorably commenting on Brno’s production of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. The three verismo tendencies—rustico, borghese, and exotico—fully captivated him in the following decade. The rustic verismo trend suited him, allowing him to utilize his folkloristic findings, which waned around the turn of the century. By then, he was composing his third opera, Jenůfa, based on Gabriela Preissová’s realist-naturalist drama. The opera’s creation is dated from 1894 to 1903. Janáček approached this rural drama with a tragic moral dilemma of ancient tragedy proportions with a distinctly regional focus, leveraging the environment’s specificity and uniqueness. Thus, his opera was unequivocally localized from its inception, departing from the universal settings typical of Czech rural operas until the 1890s.
Janáček’s Path to Originality
By the late 19th century, while increasingly focused on composing his third opera, Jenůfa, Janáček also transformed his cantata and symphonic style, notably with the cantata Amarus (1897, text by Jaroslav Vrchlický) and the socially accented cantata Otčenáš (1901), inspired by paintings by Polish artist Józef Męcina-Krzesza. Speech melodies became a permanent part of his compositional method from 1897, with situations inspired by them evident in Jenůfa. Beyond his significant involvement in the folkloristic movement at an all-Austrian level, Janáček advocated for a Czech symphony orchestra in Brno in the late 1890s. From 1897 until its dissolution in 1915, he chaired the Brno Russian Circle. In connection with Pushkin’s jubilee, he focused on this poet, but from the early 20th century, he also explored Nikolai Gogol and Leo Tolstoy through reading. In 1907, he sketched operatic studies for Anna Karenina, and in September 1916, he composed the first act of a planned opera, The Living Corpse, based on Tolstoy’s drama. He visited Russia three times in 1896 and 1902, taking an interest in Russian folklore and traveling along the Volga to Nizhny Novgorod. He sent his daughter Olga to St. Petersburg in 1902 to study Russian with his brother František, encouraging her to send regular correspondence describing Russian life. After her death in 1903, caused by illness during her stay in Russia, Janáček maintained a deep admiration for Russian literature, later drawing on it for two operas and the symphonic rhapsody Taras Bulba. His Russian travels also deepened his interest in Polish music, culture, and literature, even considering a position in Warsaw.
After his third opera, Jenůfa, whose Prague premiere required a struggle from its successful Brno debut in 1904 until 1916, Janáček showed a shift away from rustic themes as folkloristic influences waned. This was evident in his uncertainty in choosing plots and attempts at naturalist or urban verismo-inspired concepts (e.g., intentions to compose based on Josef Merhaut’s Angelic Sonata, Tolstoy’s works, or returns to Gabriela Preissová’s The Farmer’s Wife or Spring Song). The result was a clear reaction against rural themes in his fourth opera, Destiny.
Between the verismo of Jenůfa and Destiny, a significant societal shift in the mid-1900s impacted Janáček’s thematic orientation, compositional method, and musical poetics. After 1900, the fight for a second Czech university in Brno sparked numerous supportive actions, particularly in Moravia. This process had both national and social dimensions, highlighting the isolation of peripheral regions from Prague’s central Czech politics. The poet of this minority in Silesia was the author of Silesian Songs, published under the pseudonym Petr Bezruč, later identified as postal clerk Vladimír Vašek. His father, a philologist, participated in the manuscript controversies, where a group led by Tomáš G. Masaryk, philologist Jan Gebauer, and historian Jaroslav Goll opposed the idealization of Czech history through forged manuscripts. Janáček set three male choruses to Bezruč’s texts (Kantor Halfar – 1906, Maryčka Magdonova – 1908, and 70,000 – 1909). Notably, through the montage of highly contrasting musical layers, he achieved an expressive intensity that, due to its tension and overall impact, can be considered a manifestation of socially motivated expressionism. Unique to this social expressionism is its avoidance of atonality. The loss of tonal certainty and amorphousness of Viennese atonal expressionism were often linked to societal destabilization. Janáček’s socially motivated expressionism reaches similarly extreme expressive heights without sacrificing tonality. Combined with the success of the ambitious Moravian Teachers’ Choral Society, led by Ferdinand Vach, Janáček gained significant popularity. In Brno, where Czech intellectuals campaigned for a second Czech university, this movement peaked during the Volkstagu in late September to early October 1905, when worker František Pavlík died during a demonstration for the university. Janáček composed a fragment of the piano sonata From the Street, October 1, 1905 in response. By then, he had already created several impressionist-oriented piano miniatures in the cycle On an Overgrown Path, begun in 1901.
Under the pressure of Czech symphonism, Janáček sought a compromise between the large romantic orchestra and his montage method. The sonic approaches and instrumental innovations of these composers impressed him, but he remained rooted in the “empty center” principle, disliking filled soundscapes and favoring solo timbres.
During World War I, Janáček received recognition with the Prague premiere of Jenůfa (May 26, 1916, National Theatre, conducted by Karel Kovařovic) and its Vienna Hofoper performance on February 16, 1918, under Hugo Reichenberger. The Prague performance marked the acknowledgment of his lifelong efforts, while the Vienna production was part of the court’s new cultural policy to consolidate internal relations in Austria-Hungary, reflecting interest in regional and local traditions.
On New Paths
After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Janáček enthusiastically welcomed the establishment of Czechoslovakia and actively participated in the cultural life of Brno and the nation. He witnessed Brno’s transformation into a functionalist metropolis in the 1920s, gradually absorbing new influences.
Following Jenůfa’s success in Prague and Vienna, Janáček’s path as an operatic composer opened. Max Brod played a key role, fostering an artistic friendship and collaboration that began with Brod’s article Tschechisches Opernglück, written months after Jenůfa’s Prague premiere for the Berlin journal Schaubühne (November 15, 1916). Brod translated Janáček’s operas into German and promoted his work.
Janáček’s Russophilia, dating back to the turn of the century, culminated in his sixth opera, Káťa Kabanová, composed from January 1920 to April 1921, based on Alexander Ostrovsky’s drama The Storm (Groza) in Vincenc Červinka’s translation. Its premiere, Janáček’s most lyrical opera, was conducted by František Neumann at Brno’s National Theatre on November 23, 1921. In the 1920s, it was also performed at Prague’s National Theatre (November 30, 1922, conducted by Otakar Ostrčil), in Bratislava, Ostrava, Cologne’s Stadttheater (conducted by Otto Klemperer), and Berlin’s Städtische Oper (May 31, 1926, conducted by Fritz Zweig). Janáček attended all premieres except Cologne’s.
Janáček reached the pinnacle of his compositional method—montage akin to cinematic vision and original syntheses of impressionism and 1920s modernism—with his seventh opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, based on Rudolf Těsnohlídek’s work. Composed in 1922–23, it premiered under František Neumann at Brno’s National Theatre on November 6, 1924, with Janáček present. In the mid-1920s, he was honored by Masaryk University on January 28, 1925, becoming its first honorary doctor. By then, he was completing his eighth opera, The Makropulos Affair (1923–25), based on Karel Čapek’s play.
His orchestral works also achieved great success after 1918, though they remained his most traditional domain. In the ballad The Fiddler’s Child (based on Svatopluk Čech’s poem) and, to an extent, the rhapsody Taras Bulba, Janáček could not escape the contemporary acclaim of Richard Strauss and, in Czech circles, Vítězslav Novák and Josef Suk. In Lachian Dances (1924), he revisited impulses from the late 1880s and early 1890s. A surprising testament to new directions in his symphonism was the Sinfonietta for orchestra, composed in spring 1926 and premiered by the Czech Philharmonic under Václav Talich in Prague on June 26, 1926, with Janáček present. Otto Klemperer conducted it in Wiesbaden on December 9, 1926, and later in New York. Alongside his 1920s operas and Sinfonietta, the ideological pinnacle of Janáček’s oeuvre was the Glagolitic Mass, composed from August to December 1926 and premiered in Brno’s Stadion Hall on December 5, 1927, by the Brno Beseda, soloists, and National Theatre orchestra under Janáček’s pupil Jaroslav Kvapil.
In the 1920s, Janáček received numerous honors. The Organ School he founded and directed became a conservatory in 1919. Though his theoretical teachings were not fully integrated into its curriculum due to their exclusivity, he became a professor at the Prague master school based in Brno. He served on the music advisory board of the Ministry of Education and National Enlightenment and was a member of various associations, including the Prague Society for Modern Music, which elected him an honorary member. From 1912, he was a member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts, from 1927 a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, a corresponding member of The School of Slavonic Studies, and from August 1927 an honorary member of The New Music Society of California. In his final years, a memorial plaque was installed at his birthplace in Hukvaldy, and a monument was erected in the Štramberk region (1927). His legacy in Brno was cultivated by three successive Leoš Janáček Societies. The first, founded in 1934 during Zdeňka Janáčková’s lifetime, was followed by others in the 1980s and 1990s under Prof. Jiří Vysloužil’s leadership, which centralized musicological research with international reach. This work continues through the Leoš Janáček Society, established in December 2000 at the Institute of Musicology, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno. The most active international Janáček society is the Leoš Janáček Gesellschaft in Zurich, led by Jakob Knaus since its founding. The greatest scholarly interest in Janáček’s work comes from musicologists in England, the USA, Austria, and Switzerland. Janáček congresses, colloquia, and conferences began with the 1958 international congress in Brno, which first addressed his relationship to contemporary music, 1920s modernism, and the musical avant-garde. Though Janáček belongs chronologically to the 1850s generation, he had no affinity for it, aligning instead with trends emerging at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Miloš Štědroň
Source:
Czech Music Dictionary of Persons and Institutions Center for Music Lexicography Institute of Musicology Faculty of Arts Masaryk University Arna Nováka 1, 602 00 Brno, CZ