Leoš Janáček: On an Overgrown Path, JW VIII/17 (Choreography: Mário Radačovský)
Leoš Janáček: Capriccio, JW VII/12 / for piano left hand and chamber wind ensemble (Choreography: Megumi Nakamura)
Leoš Janáček: In the Mists, JW VIII/22
Janáček’s work, deeply rooted in folk music, also embraces the piano, perhaps his most intimate instrument.
The first series of the poetic piano cycle On an Overgrown Path took shape gradually in 1900, 1908, and 1911. Five pieces were composed in 1900, when Janáček was forty-six years old. They first appeared as short works for harmonium in the Slavonic Melodies series, published by the teacher Emil Kolář in Ivančice. The expansion of the cycle was encouraged by editor Jan Branberger, who in 1908 arranged for their publication by Prague publisher Bedřich Kočí. This publishing interest prompted Janáček to compose further pieces, extending the cycle to ten numbers, each with a poetic title. These short, intimate miniatures, often recalling the composer’s personal memories, are today among his best-known and most frequently performed works. Two early pieces from 1900, Con moto and Allegro, were not included in the printed edition of the cycle.
The origins of Janáček’s Capriccio are linked to the fate of Otakar Hollmann (1894–1967), a promising musician who studied violin before the First World War. A war injury to his hand left him permanently disabled, yet he did not give up: after the war he took up piano as a one-handed player. Dissatisfied with mere adaptations of two-handed works, he appealed to composers to write original pieces for the left hand. He approached Janáček as well, who at first reacted sharply: “Childish – what do you expect to play with one hand? It is hard enough to dance on one leg.” But after hearing Hollmann perform, he reconsidered. Although Hollmann doubted the outcome, Janáček conceived a truly original work. In autumn 1926 he completed the Capriccio for piano left hand and wind ensemble, writing to Hollmann on 11 November: “I have written a Capriccio. You know, to write for one hand alone seemed childish wilfulness. There had to be other reasons, external and internal. When all of them came together, the work was born.” Scored for piano with piccolo, two trumpets, three trombones, and tenor tuba, the four-movement work was premiered by Hollmann on 2 March 1928 in the Smetana Hall of the Municipal House in Prague. Today it is one of Janáček’s most frequently performed compositions worldwide.
Janáček completed his piano cycle In the Mists in April 1912. Two years earlier, he had moved with his wife and housekeeper into a new home in the garden of the Organ School. There, withdrawn from the world, beset by self-doubt and melancholy, he composed his last substantial work for solo piano. Written not long after hearing the piano music of Claude Debussy, the dreamy, introspective cycle bears traces of musical impressionism. In the Mists won first prize in a composition competition held by the Club of Friends of Art, which was to publish the winning work. Janáček, however, ceded the opportunity to his pupil Jaroslav Kvapil, who had taken second prize. The cycle was first performed by Marie Dvořáková in Kroměříž on 7 December 1913.
Text: Jiří Zahrádka
