Lenka Kuželová, Dennis Schneiderka, Josef Klíč and Ondrej Olos

Leoš Janáček: Sonata for Violin and Piano; 1. X. 1905; Dumka for Violin and Piano; Fairytale for Cello and Piano

The evening atmosphere of the authentic environment of the Leoš Janáček Memorial, where the master lived and composed, is unrepeatable, especially when his chamber music is played here. This truly chamber music evening will feature members of the Brno National Theatre Orchestra.

The Sonata for Violin and Piano by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) was written in difficult times. He worked on it in 1914–15 under the impression of the political situation at the time, as the following memory illustrates: “I wrote the violin sonata at the beginning of the war, in 1914, when we were already waiting for the Russians in Moravia.” The Ballada was the first and apparently originally a separate composition, and it was not until 1915 that the other movements were completed. The composer did not revise it until 1920. The first performance took place in Brno on 24 April 1922 at an evening of new Moravian music organised by the Club of Young Moravian Composers. It is undoubtedly one of the most important compositions of 20th century violin literature.

The next composition is 1. X. 1910 (From the Street, 1 October 1905). It is a work that was created spontaneously as a reaction to the tragedy that took place during the demonstrations for a Czech University in Brno. The German inhabitants, who were the majority in the town, did not want it under any circumstances. On 1 October 1905 they organized the so-called Volkstag, when German associations and organisations from the surrounding area were called to Brno to demonstrate their opposition to the establishment of a Czech university in Brno. In response, the Czech residents of Brno called a large anti-German demonstration. Street fighting took place between the two groups, and the gendarmerie and then the army were called in. During one of the raids, a young Czech worker, František Pavlík, was killed near the Beseda House. Under the impression of this tragic event, Janáček wrote the originally three-movement composition From the Street, 1 October 1905. Just before the Brno premiere on 27 January 1906, however, he burned the last movement and after the next performance in Prague he even threw the entire autograph into the Vltava River. The first performer of the piece, pianist Ludmila Tučková, fortunately kept the original copy, which she did not draw attention to until 1924. Thanks to this, the piano piece, forgotten for many years by the composer and his surroundings, has been preserved.

The Dumka is a work from Janáček’s apprentice years. We know almost nothing about its composition; Janáček later recalled that he composed it in 1880, but the Master was not very precise in dating his early works. The composition could have been written during Janáček’s studies at the Leipzig or Vienna Conservatory, or shortly afterwards. We know at least when it was first heard; it was on 8 March 1885 at a concert of the Association for the Enhancement of Church Music in Moravia, with Janáček himself sitting at the piano.

The inspiration for Janáček’s Fairytale for Cello and Piano was Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky’s fairytale “Skazka o care Berendej, o syne jego Ivana tsarevich, o chitrostjach Koschei bezsmertnogo i o premudrosti Marja tsarevny, Koschei docheri”. This was neither the first nor the last time Janáček used a Russian theme. Janáček finished the first version of this story about the Tsar’s ill-considered promise, which caused him to lose his only child, on 10 February 1910. The autograph contains three movements. The Fairytale was performed on 13 March 1910 as part of the sixth sonata lesson at the Brno Organ School. Subsequently Janáček arranged the composition into four parts and had it performed on 12 March 1912. The third version was published in 1923. The nature of the composition suggests that Janáček composed it during years of certain despair and loneliness.

Jiří Zahrádka