Leoš Janáček - Sinfonietta

Terry Williams enjoys a musical city tour in the company of the Czech composer as he explores the nooks and crannies of the best recordings

- Terry Williams

The composer

Born in 1854 in Hukvaldy (near Ostrava), Janáček was a late developer as a composer, and his earlier adult years were spent as an organist and teacher, as well as devoting himself to the study of Moravian folk music. Though he travelled to both Leipzig and Vienna to study, he returned home from both having achieved little. It wasn't until the turn of the 20th century that his compositions started to win acclaim. But even then, his progress was hindered by a scathing review he had written back in 1887 about the opera The Bridegrooms by Karel Kovařovic, who still held a grudge (see right)...

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The work

In 1904, the 50-year-old Leoš Janáček enjoyed his first triumph on home ground with Jenúfa, a tragic opera of rustic life, the musical score of which closely followed the speech-rhythms of his native Moravia. This set the pattern for almost everything that followed. It was premiered to great acclaim in Janáček's native city of Brno, but because of his longstanding dispute with Karel Kovařovic, director of Prague's opera house, Jenifa wasn't heard in the capital until 1916.

Productions in Vienna and Cologne, albeit in a bastardised German translation, took place in 1918, the year which saw the birth of Czechoslovakia and Janáček's belated appearance on the international stage.