Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček, born on the 3rd July 1854 in Hukvaldy in the north-east of the Czech Republic, as the ninth of 14 children. At the age of eleven he attended an Augustiner-Closter in Brno with a scholarship. His father died a year later; he was a teacher and organist and had made the contact with the composer and choir conductor of the Augustin foundation, Pavel Krizkovsky) 1866-69 Leoš Janáček attended a german-speaking school, 1869-72 the slovakian teachertraining institution. He became a teacher for history and geography „making an allowance for the Czech tongue“.
As a choirboy in the convent he had received regular music lesson in singing and organ. After a teaching course at the Prague Organ School (1874/75) he was a teacher of singing, organ and piano in Brno, 1878 the violin was added too. After fully completing study at the Leipzig Conservatory (Oct. 1879-Feb. 1880) and Vienna (Apr.-May 1880) his training was finished. He had also occupied himself with Psychology and Aesthetics, above all with the works from Hermann von Helmholtz (1863), Wilhelm Wundt (1874), Josef Durdik (1875) and Robert Zimmermann (1865).
Leoš Janáček later worked in Brno: he conducted choir-ensembles, performed as a pianist, formed an orchestra, wrote critiques and theoretical works, founded a music newspaper as well as the Brno Organ School. His friendship with Antonín Dvořák influences his concert program. The first compositions for choir were written between 1870 and 1876, for string-orchestra 1877 and 1878. He only ‘found‘ his original style after intensively studying folk-music. Through this resulted a pre-occupation with the melody of the spoken language. In the Cantate „Amarus“ (1897) is the mature style first clearly audible.
Janáček had not become recognised outside of Brno, in Prague he was regarded as provincial and a gruff folk-music specialist. The family situation after marriage with the 16 year-old Zdenka Schulz 1881 and the death of both children, Vladimír (1888-1890) and Olga (1882-1903), was strained by the tension between the accented slovakian direction of Janácek and the german-austrian orientation of his wife’s family. The isolation lead to an identity-crisis in the years before the First World War. This set the performances of his third opera „Jeji pastorkyna“ 1916 in Prague and 1918 in Vienna (première Brno 1904) as well as his accquaintance with the 38-year younger Kamila Stösslova (1891-1935) to an end. From 1917 onwards it seemed as though one work directly after another was produced, the first performaces abroad followed (Köln, New York, Berlin). At 70 he was a well-known composer and was included as one of the Avantgarde. He received prizes and was invited to England and enjoyed worldwide recognition before he died, on the 12th August 1928, in Ostrava.
As a choirboy in the convent he had received regular music lesson in singing and organ. After a teaching course at the Prague Organ School (1874/75) he was a teacher of singing, organ and piano in Brno, 1878 the violin was added too. After fully completing study at the Leipzig Conservatory (Oct. 1879-Feb. 1880) and Vienna (Apr.-May 1880) his training was finished. He had also occupied himself with Psychology and Aesthetics, above all with the works from Hermann von Helmholtz (1863), Wilhelm Wundt (1874), Josef Durdik (1875) and Robert Zimmermann (1865).
Leoš Janáček later worked in Brno: he conducted choir-ensembles, performed as a pianist, formed an orchestra, wrote critiques and theoretical works, founded a music newspaper as well as the Brno Organ School. His friendship with Antonín Dvořák influences his concert program. The first compositions for choir were written between 1870 and 1876, for string-orchestra 1877 and 1878. He only ‘found‘ his original style after intensively studying folk-music. Through this resulted a pre-occupation with the melody of the spoken language. In the Cantate „Amarus“ (1897) is the mature style first clearly audible.
Janáček had not become recognised outside of Brno, in Prague he was regarded as provincial and a gruff folk-music specialist. The family situation after marriage with the 16 year-old Zdenka Schulz 1881 and the death of both children, Vladimír (1888-1890) and Olga (1882-1903), was strained by the tension between the accented slovakian direction of Janácek and the german-austrian orientation of his wife’s family. The isolation lead to an identity-crisis in the years before the First World War. This set the performances of his third opera „Jeji pastorkyna“ 1916 in Prague and 1918 in Vienna (première Brno 1904) as well as his accquaintance with the 38-year younger Kamila Stösslova (1891-1935) to an end. From 1917 onwards it seemed as though one work directly after another was produced, the first performaces abroad followed (Köln, New York, Berlin). At 70 he was a well-known composer and was included as one of the Avantgarde. He received prizes and was invited to England and enjoyed worldwide recognition before he died, on the 12th August 1928, in Ostrava.