Mládí (Youth) (1924)
1 Andante
2 Moderato
3 Allegro
4 Con moto
Pohádka (Fairy Tale) for ‘Cello and Piano (1910 revised 1924)
1 Con moto: Andante
2 Con moto: Adagio
3 Allegro
Concertino (1925)
1 Moderato
2 Piu Mosso
3 Con moto
4 Allegro
Much of Janácek’s most characteristic music dates from the remarkable final decade of his life. The Prague première of his opera Jenufa in 1916 and, as a result, his growing recognition across German – speaking Central Europe, had given him renewed creative confidence. Add to this his patriotic pride at the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and his extraordinary late-flowering infatuation with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman almost half his age, and we can begin to understand why a composer in his seventies should produce such a rich and original late harvest. In Janacek’s late music we find a freshness, a boldness, and an intensity of feeling which would be remarkable in many younger composers of the 1920s; it is easy to forget that he was of a generation closer to Mahler and Dvorak than to Stravinsky or Bartók. These youthful qualities stand out in the works performed this afternoon. Mládí (Youth), written in 1924, shows the way in which Janácek’s feeling and imagination pushed him to experiment with established forms – he takes the standard wind quintet, adds one instrument (bass clarinet), persuades the flute to double on piccolo, and so creates a wholly novel sound-world, perfectly calculated to express the new intensity of his emotional state. The work has no specific programme beside that of its title; although hints of a march in the final Con moto have sometimes been supposed to refer to the Prussian occupation of Brno in 1866, which Janácek witnessed as a boy. The music constantly changes in mood and colour, evoking the rapidly shifting emotions of the composer’s youth with nostalgia but never sentimentality. The Concertino, written the following year shows a still more fresh approach to sound and form. Despite its title, it has little resemblance to the traditional concerto. While the piano plays almost constantly, the majority of the other instruments are silent for entire movements, solo horn and clarinet merely sketching in the outlines of a surrounding landscape with echoes, horncalls and birdsong. Only in the final two movements do the majority of the instruments play together for any period of time, and these have the closest resemblance to traditional forms, the third movement – an angular march framing an idyllic central section – having a distant similarity to a scherzo and trio. Pohádka (A Fairy Tale) dates from 1910, during a lull in Janácek’s creative career. Denied productions of his operas beyond his native Brno, he worked fitfully on the opera The Excursions of Mr Brou_ek and wrote for whatever outlets of performance were open to him. These included local male voice choruses, and the music section of the Brno Klub P_átel Um_ní (Friends of Art Club), founded by him in 1904. This specialized in chamber music, and may have been the audience for whom he wrote Pohádka. He clearly thought highly enough of the work to revise it in 1924, during his final creative resurgence.
R.G. Bratby, 1998
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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