Leoš Janáček
Biography, works and influence.
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) was a Czech composer whose distinctive musical language transformed 20th-century opera. Although he composed choral, orchestral, chamber and instrumental works, he is best known for his innovative operas, inspired by the rhythms of spoken Czech and the folk traditions of his native Moravia.
Who was Janáček?
Early Life
Leoš Janáček was born in Hukvaldy, Moravia, in 1854, into a family that was musical but poor. Training as a chorister at a local monastery was followed by studies in Prague, Leipzig and Vienna. Janáček returned to Brno to work as a choirmaster, collect folk songs and develop his compositional style. Choral music and opera were his greatest enthusiasms, but he was also a composer of instrumental, chamber and orchestral music.
Finding Success
Janáček’s music was barely known outside Moravia until his opera Jenůfa received a belated performance in Prague in 1916. From then on, his fortunes started to change, as his music began to attract attention in Germany and the US. Janáček wrote many of his most celebrated works, including Sinfonietta, the Glagolitic Mass, the two string quartets and four major operas in the last decade of his life.
Personal Life
Janáček suffered personal sorrows throughout his life. His marriage to Zdenka Schulzová was unhappy, and both his children died – his son in early childhood and his daughter as a young woman. In later life, he became infatuated with Kamila Stösslová, a happily married family friend, with whom he pursued a passionate, long-running correspondence. Janáček died in 1928, close to the village of his birth, after catching a chill when out walking.
Leoš Janáček
Born: 3 July 1854, Hukvaldy, Moravia (now Czechia)
Died: 12 August 1928, Ostrava, Czechoslovakia
Contemporaries: Antonín Dvořák, Gustav Mahler, Giacomo Puccini, Edward Elgar
Best known for: Jenůfa, The Cunning Little Vixen, Katya Kabanova, Sinfonietta, Glagolitic Mass
The one piece you have to hear: Katya Kabanova
Connection to the LSO: Sir Simon Rattle, LSO Conductor Emeritus, has conducted and recorded a major concert series of Janáček’s operas, released on the LSO Live label.
Watch
Janáček’s music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, at the Barbican, and an exploration of the plot of The Makropulos Affair.
Who inspired Janáček?
Janáček grew up during a period of intense Czech nationalism and developed a lifelong fascination with the folksong of his native Moravia. The rhythms and inflections of spoken Czech became central to his mature compositional style, giving his music its distinctive melodic character.
Despite studying in Germany and Austria, Janáček inhabited a cultural world largely removed from the West European artistic mainstream, while remaining deeply interested in the wider Slavonic tradition. His operas also reveal the influence of 19th-century orchestral writing, while their emotional intensity and dramatic pacing place him alongside composers such as Giacomo Puccini. Today, he is regarded as one of the most original opera composers of the 20th century.
In Depth
Five Reasons to Love Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair
Timmy Fisher looks back at Janáček’s wonderfully dramatic opera that cemented him as one of the operatic greats.
Five Reasons to Love Janáček's Jenůfa
There’s lots to love about Jenůfa, the opera that propelled Czech composer Leoš Janáček to fame, from its dramatic plot and multi-dimensional characters, to the colourful, folk-inspired music.
What are Janáček’s most famous pieces?
Operas
Janáček regarded himself as an opera composer first and foremost, though recognition came relatively late in his career. Today, he is considered one of the most important and original opera composers of the 20th century. He composed nine operas, in a mixture of genres, and later wrote his own libretti.
His operas are remarkable for their unusual subjects. Jenůfa and Katya Kabanova are tragic dramas centred on the suffering of women, while The Makropoulos Affair tells the story of a woman who has lived for 300 years after taking an elixir of life. The Excursions of Mr Brouček is a surreal comedy in which its hero travels to the Moon and back in time to the 15th century, while The Cunning Little Vixen, inspired by a newspaper comic strip, combines humour, nature and philosophy in one of Janáček’s most beloved works.
Orchestral and Choral Music
Although best known for his operas, Janáček also composed major orchestral and choral works. Sinfonietta, written for a gymnastics festival, is an unusual ‘little symphony’ whose expanded brass and percussion sections celebrate what the composer described as a vision of ‘vigour and freedom’. The Glagolitic Mass, meanwhile, stands among the 20th century’s greatest choral works, combining Janáček’s distinctive musical language with immense dramatic power.
With the LSO
The LSO first performed music by Janáček at the Barbican on 26 June 1984, with Rafael Kubelík conducting the composer’s Sinfonietta alongside Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.
Janáček’s operas have been a particular focus of our work with LSO Conductor Emeritus Sir Simon Rattle. Together, we have performed five of of his major works: Jenůfa, Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Excursions of Mr Brouček and The Makropoulos Affair.
Composer Connections
Janáček was a close contemporary of Puccini and Elgar. Within Czech music, he sits chronologically between Dvořák and Mahler, both of whom were born in neighbouring Bohemia, though Mahler’s family were German-speaking. The celebrated Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha, six years Janáček’s junior, was also a fellow Moravian.
Janáček’s fiercely individual style, rooted in Moravian folk traditions and the rhythms of spoken Czech, has ensured his influence extends far beyond his homeland. His operas continue to occupy a central place in the international repertoire and are admired for their psychological insight, originality and dramatic power.
Written by Dr Alexandra Wilson
