Leoš Janáček: Moravian Folk Songs for Piano, JW VIII/23
Pavel Haas: Folk Songs for Piano, HW VII/14
Václav Kaprál: Miniatures, 5 Pieces for Piano
Leoš Janáček: In the Mists, JW VIII/22
Leoš Janáček: 1. X. 1905
The cycle of fifteen Moravian Folk Songs for Piano by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) represents an intriguing neo-folkloristic parallel to the Romantic “songs without words” of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Edvard Grieg, or Janáček’s favorite, Anton Rubinstein. Composed in 1921–1922 on commission from Otakar Nebuška of the Prague publishing house Hudební matice Umělecké besedy, the cycle remained unpublished during Janáček’s lifetime. His arrangements of folk songs are aphoristic miniatures in a modern, strikingly personal idiom.
The composition period of the Moravian Folk Songs overlapped with Janáček’s teaching at the Brno branch of the Master School of the Prague Conservatory. Janáček decided to involve his students in the reflections that occupied him while arranging the folk songs. Throughout the school year, he presented them with individual songs, which they then harmonized and arranged for piano as seminar work. The five Folk Songs for Piano by Pavel Haas (1899–1944), composed at the turn of 1921–1922 under Janáček’s guidance, reveal the exceptional talent of his most prominent pupil and provide an engaging comparison with Janáček’s own cycle.
Václav Kaprál (1889–1947) was not only an important Czech composer of the first half of the 20th century but, as a student of Alfred Cortot, also a significant Czech pianist. A graduate of Janáček’s Organ School, he later continued his composition studies in Prague with Vítězslav Novák. Kaprál’s Miniatures (1922) comprise five short piano pieces in which Janáček’s and Novák’s influences meet those of French Impressionism and German avant-garde currents.
Janáček completed his piano cycle In the Mists in April 1912. Shortly before, in 1910, he had moved with his wife and housekeeper into a new house in the garden of the Organ School. There, withdrawn from the world and struggling with self-doubt and melancholy, he composed his last more extensive work for solo piano. Written soon after he heard the piano works of French composer Claude Debussy, this dreamy and introspective work bears clear traces of musical Impressionism.
Text: Ondřej Pivoda
