“GEORGE ENESCU” NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IAȘI

Faculty of Performance, Composition and Music Theory Studies

PhD Studies

DOCTORAL THESIS
The Piano Oeuvre of Leoš Janáček – Transcendence through Programmatism.
ABSTRACT

PhD Advisor, PhD Candidate,

prof. univ. dr. Dan Prelipcean Dragoș Andrei Cantea

Professional Doctorate,
Subdomain of Performing Arts (Music)

Iași
2020
 “GEORGE ENESCU” NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IAȘI
Faculty of Performance, Composition and Music Theory Studies
PhD Studies

The Piano Oeuvre of Leoš Janáček.

Transcendence through Programmatism.
:: Abstract ::

PhD Advisor, PhD Candidate,

prof. univ. dr. Dan Prelipcean Dragoș Andrei Cantea
 Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................ 3

First Part 5
1. Childhood, Family, and Studies .............................................................................. 5
2. The Influence of Folk Music ................................................................................... 5
3. Herbartian Philosophy in Janáček’s Oeuvre ............................................................ 6

Second part 7
4. In memoriam (1886) and Souvenir (1928). ............................................................. 7
5. Zdenka Variations (1880) ........................................................................................ 8
6. Sonata 1. X. 1905 “From the Street” (1905) ........................................................... 9
7. In the Mists (1912) ................................................................................................ 11
8. On an Overgrown Path (Book I – 1911)................................................................ 12
9. On an Overgrown Path (Book II – op. posth. 1942).............................................. 13
10. The “Rusophilia” of Janáček ................................................................................. 14
11. The Distinct Notion of Programmatism: ............................................................... 16

Third part 17
12. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1914) ....................................................................... 17
13. Concertino (1925) .................................................................................................. 18
14. Fairy-tale (Pohádka) for cello and piano (1910).................................................... 19
15. “Defiance” Capriccio for Piano Left-Hand and Chamber Ensemble .................... 19
16. Comparative Analysis of Recordings .................................................................... 20

Conclusions ....................................................................................... 21

Bibliography……………………………………………………….. 23
 Introduction

The introductory section of the research emphasises the current state of studies on
the oeuvre of Janáček in the international musical-scientific sphere, while also
establishing links to some of the few articles published under the domain of Czech
piano literature.

Later, the main objective of the paper is being presented, and we position the
research in an innovative area, meant to become a fundament for future
approaches with the music of Janáček in foreground, both performance-wise, and
scientifically.

The research encompasses a sum of information about the complete piano works
of Janáček, but it can be looked at also as a collection about the musical
development of the Czech composer, from three different perspectives:
biographically, analytically (theoretically) and performance-wise (artistically).

The bibliographical highlights are being presented under these three perspectives,
remembering some works that represented remarkable landmarks in our research,
such as the biographies signed by John Tyrrell and Ian Horsbrugh, and other
doctoral articles published under the care of Sibelius Academy. Moreover, the
empirical contribution is also highlighted, especially when it comes to
performance techniques, to support the artistic progress within the three recitals
that included works by Janáček.

Considering several unforeseen events along the research period, we were forced
to address a different dissemination compared to the one presented initially, but
one that included the national premiere of Janáček’s complete programmatic
piano works. The title translations of these works, as well as of all the works

3
mentioned and/or analysed in this study belong to us entirely, since they have not
been researched previously by any other Romanian scientific authority.

In this context, the research is structured in three different parts, each portraying
a different segment of Leoš Janáček.

The first part will offer us an ensemble view on his life and on his profile as a
composer, together with two of the most important influences in his works – folk
music and Herbartian philosophy.

The second part opens the pianistic universe of Janáček in chronological order,
noting the evolutive trajectory of his musical language. In this part there are being
debated several social and political guidelines that represented a major influence
in the consolidation of Janáček’s compositional technique, both as an
ethnomusicologist and as an innovator of musical language.

The third part of the research deals with the main opuses of his chamber works
that also include piano, although with some important omissions, due to their
development towards the opera genre rather than towards the concert style, to
which we address mainly in this study.

Eventually, it is restated that this research is accomplished from a mainly

performance perspective, and not musicological. Despite some summaries of
analyses that include semiotics, which are much more related to the musicological
area, our own contribution is based on empirical methods, and on our own
performing experience accumulated as a concert pianist.

4
 First part
Composer profile – history and identity

1. Childhood, Family, and Studies

The introductory chapter is entirely biographical, considering Janáček’s still low
level of popularity. Here are presented events from the early stages of his life, the
traditions and family beliefs, but also his educational struggles. Although Janáček
had the chance to study abroad, in Leipzig and Vienna, these periods proved to be
rather negative experiences for the young composer, but helped him consolidate
his beliefs that his home land of Moravia had all the inspirational ingredients
necessary to provide for his human and professional development at home.

2. The Influence of Folk Music

The second chapter presents the adulthood of Janáček, in which he began to
exercise his managerial vision, especially after founding the Organ School in
Brno, which today is the headquarters of the conservatory that is named in
Janáček’s honour. The institutional model that underlies the school is mirroring
the one from Prague. From this position as director of the Organ School, Janáček
started to collect and transcribe Czech folk tunes, both from Moravia and from
Bohemia.

Later, we present some melodic examples with folk tunes collected by Janáček
from both regions, noting at the same time the cultural discrepancies between
Bohemia and Moravia. The first, being significantly more urbanized and
prosperous, was always considered an integrated part of Western Europe.
Moravia, on the other hand, mainly a rural community, conserved its slavonic
identity with the East. The traditional music of both regions reveals these
contrasts.

5
Moving on, we will already try to establish a framework of realistic style on
Janáček, emphasising his profound connection with the natural environment.
These inspirational elements that Janáček found in nature underlie his speech
melodies (nápěvky mluvy) in all his compositions, anticipating Schoenberg’s
sprechgesang with several decades. Essentially, the natural element provides
Janáček the ideology that music cannot be separated from life itself.

It was specifically this connection of Janáček with nature that made some critics,
such as Michael Beckerman, describe the composer as a “naturalist”.1

In the same attempt of establishing a certain framework of style, Tiina Vainiomäki

illustrated several other examples from his opera works that highlight Janáček’s
interests about fields such as psychology, philosophy or religion,2 emphasizing
the foundation of an analytical perspective that aims for interdisciplinarity in
Janáček’s way of thinking.

3. Herbartian Philosophy in Janáček’s Oeuvre

In order to better understand the way the melodic elements relate to each other in
Janáček, starting from the smallest melodico-rhythmical detail, the cell, and all
the way to the construction of extensive phrases, this chapter aims to present a
social ideology and a didactical method that was very popular in the German and
Austro-Hungarian educational systems.

Herbart considered that by reducing all the elements to their smallest component
(atomization) and by understanding how these elements react with the whole, the
contradictions can be resolved, and unity accomplished. In music, this relation
provides for the link between rhythm, melody, and harmony.

1
Michael Brim Beckerman - Janáček As Theorist (Pendragon Press, New York, 1994), p. 115.
2
Tiina Vainiomäki - The Musical Realism of Leoš Janáček (Sibelius, Helsinki, 2012), p. 19.
6
In Janáček’s opuses we can observe this “atomization” in melodic layering and
motivic fragmentation, the smallest unit being called sčasovka. This unit, in many
works, as we will be able to distinguish in the following chapters, gains an
overwhelming importance in its individuality, but also represents the unifying
element between several segments of the whole.

Second part
Analysis of evolution of pianistic language

4. In memoriam (1886) and Souvenir (1928).

The Prologue and Epilogue of his Piano Oeuvre.
In this chapter we will analyse two miniatures, without opus number, which
delimitate Janáček’s complete piano works. The analytical perspective of these
two works is being accomplished considering Thomas Adès’ study.3

In memoriam was initially introduced in a collection of miniatures entitled

Intimate Sketches, published in 1994, after sixty-four years after Janáček’s death.

Even though this opus acts as a pianistic prologue of only one page in length,
Adès offers a thorough analysis, identifying both its structure, and its harmonic
progression, dominated by numerous enharmonic transitions.

Souvenir represents yet another miniature, published in its original version in a

Serbian magazine, in 1928. Within it, we note the lack of any key signature,
Janáček coping with the idea of a free tonal framework since many years before
this.

3
Thomas Adès - Janáček’s Solo Piano Music article, published in Paul Wingfield - Janáček
Studies
7
This miniature is dominated by the harmonic relations evolved from the third
(interval), found in different poses along the work.

The work also presents a small three-verses structure, but the coda is represented
by an augmentation in the left-hand, with powerful harmonic consequences,
setting up a rather free and open end.

5. Zdenka Variations (1880)

The year 1880 marks the publishing of Janáček’s first major composition for
piano. This first opus bears the name of his wife, being dedicated to her during
his studies in Leipzig.

Purely from a structural point of view, we cannot hope for any sign of innovation,
but rather of formal constraints, since the theme and variations genre can represent
an obstacle in regards to the freedom that a young composer might want to
experiment with. However, the opus does not show an innovative character nor
from the musical perspective, being situated far away from what we might
consider a “typical Janáček piece”.

It is, though, a study opus, that attracts in its conception the influence of Janáček’s
mentors. Even the harmonic progression of the theme portrays influences of his
main tutor, Dvořák. Given that we will highlight this kind of influences as well,
it is important to mention Jaroslav Vogel’s observation, whom considers both the
theme and the following seven variations that belong stylistically to different
composers from the Romantic era – Mendelssohn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, etc.4

4
Jaroslav Vogel - Leoš Janáček: A Biography (London, Ed. Orbis, 1981), p. 71.
8
This chapter sums up naturally also an analysis of style and language, underlined
by Lydia Michel’s study, An Analysis of Leoš Janáček’s Early Style, published in
2014 at the Christian University of Fort Worth, Texas, USA.

The analysis features details about specific musical elements, but also our own
conclusions when it comes to style, and some performing suggestions, especially
regarding the transitions between the variations.

6. Sonata 1. X. 1905 “From the Street” (1905)

The sixth chapter highlights one of the works with the most significant
programmatic dimensions in Janáček’s oeuvre, and at the same time one of the
most popular works of Janáček, both for audiences and pianists.

While mentioning the programmatic direction, we will try to establish a

framework of the sonata from a historical point of view, presenting the social
events that led Janáček to write the work:
“The white marble of the steps of the Besední dům in Brno. The ordinary labourer
František Pavlík falls, stained with blood. He came merely to champion higher
learning and has been slain by cruel murderers.”5

Later, we present a brief analysis that encompasses performing techniques

regarding the 1. X. 1905 sonata, highlighting language features that can be
classified as representative for Janáček’s pianistic approach, such as the
“polyphony of emotions”6 – the cohesion of several contrasting musical elements
(the cantabile character of the soprano, overlaid on top of a sčasovka figuration,
repeated obsessively).

5
Ian Horsbrugh - Leoš Janáček. The field that prospered (Ed. Scribner, New York, 1981), p.
96.
6
Milan Kundera - Testaments betrayed. Translated by Linda Asher (New York, Ed. Harper
Collins, 1995), p. 183.
9
On the course of the analysis, we will intervene with several technical
recommendations, aiming to solve the passages that are impossible to perform in
the way they are written in the score.

A special interpretative notion that will gain transcendental dimensions,

especially in the second movement (Death) is the pause, since it precedes every
display of the thematic motif, destabilizing the metric organization for the listener.

Also, in regard to the transcendental features, we will draw some links between
the programme of the sonata and its association with key-moments in the score,
such as the moment where the young worker is bayoneted, twice.

At a structural level, both movements, Presentiment and Death comply with a

clear sonata form, the latter presenting a monothematic structure.

The juxtaposition of various figurations, especially in moments of dynamic

accumulation in the second movement, finds its climax in the pause mark. Even
so, we cannot consider the recapitulation of the second movement, anticipated by
pause, as an anti-climax, because the continuation of the phrase illustrates an
oppressive rhetoric.

In the end of the chapter, we debate about some details regarding stylistics,
especially the ones that imply dramaturgical significations in the 1. X. 1905 sonata
– what can possibly be the most intense piano work by Janáček from an emotional
point of view.

10
 7. In the Mists (1912)
The piano cycle with 4 movements called In the Mists was written in a rather
unhappy time for Janáček, where his self-esteem was very low, finding himself
constantly in a state of melancholy.

This opus is the one that caused numerous debates regarding the impressionistic
details that Janáček might have been trying to implement in his composition
technique.

The chapter presents, as in the case of the previous chapters, an analytical view
on the work, where we can find the bitematism in each of all the four movements,
as a unifying element between them.

At the harmonic level, the first movement – Andante, is determined by the

enharmonic relation between d flat / c sharp in the lower register, creating an
ambiguous melodic ensemble.

The second movement features the same bitematism, united by one single melodic
motif, but with a strong agogical contrast (Molto adagio – Presto). In the middle
section, we can find a Grave segment in which Janáček overlays chromatic and
dissonant figurations with some very tonal ones.

The third miniature presents even from the beginning the motivic root of the entire
movement, illustrating once more Janáček’s unique way of generating an
extensive and dramatic phrase through minimal alterations and motivic
development through enharmonization.

The last miniature of this opus emphasises the tonal symmetry of the entire cycle,
coming back to the main parent key of D-flat major in a pianistic language
dominated by the contrast illustrated along the entire work – agogically,
dynamically and technically demanding.

11
Based on the analytical perspective, the chapter also presents a study on the
impressionistic framework of the opus. The supposed influence of impressionism
or of Debussy is a complex one, especially considering that both the musical
language, as well as the entire sonic universe of Janáček is situated, usually, in
opposition to his French counterpart.

Considering the study accomplished by Miloš Štědroň, Janáček and the 20th
Century Music: Parallels, Analyses and Documents. (Brno, 1998), we conclude
that even if some aspects from In the Mists might seem to demonstrate the
influence of Debussy on Janáček, we would suggest that the result of
impressionism in his inspiration was rather to reconfirm language elements that
were already established and developed through Moravian folklore.

8. On an Overgrown Path (Book I – 1911)

The cycle On an Overgrown Path, with its two constitutive books, represents the
largest opus in Janáček’s piano works. The presentation of this cycle opens,
naturally, with its compositional context. We have described this opus while
defending the first manuscript of this current research as “an opus of memories”,
linking its concept to the intimate atmosphere created along its performance – a
feature that is completely opposite aesthetically to the trend of the time, the
symphonic grandeur of Wagner or Mahler.

The first book, which is analysed in this chapter, encompasses ten miniatures of
programmatic dimension and with a strong nationalistic character, rooted in folk
tradition and in nostalgia through the sounds of nature.

Even though the ten movements of this first book were composed in a uniform
language, the folk characteristics of each piece are different, making use of
repeated sequences. However, the thematic material does not always reflect the

12
pure meaning of the titles, as they were changed many times along the years when
Janáček came back to this book.

While also being the most recorded opus from his piano works, our analytical
perspective in this case was supported by a generous documentation. However,
we decided to sum up only the essential elements of a performing analysis – for
instance stylistics, structure, and language, aiming for our own personal
contribution, especially when it comes to technical suggestions.

After scrolling through the analysis of all the ten miniatures, the chapter closes
with a series of personal conclusions about the innovative musical elements and
their possible transcendental feature, especially under the care of sonic projection
and of several psychological approaches.

9. On an Overgrown Path (Book II – op. posth. 1942)

Succeeding in our research the first book of the cycle, the second collection of
miniatures, which is divided into five miniatures without titles, tends to be
neglected. The main explication that we have found for this considerable
discrepancy when it comes to its lack of popularity is aimed towards the musical
language. These five miniatures are much more complex in structure, the music
suffering not only a motivic fragmentation, but is being situated at the border
between tonal, modal, and atonal language.

This second book was composed in the same period as the first one. Janáček
worked simultaneously at all those miniatures. The first piece, for instance,
Andante, was published on September 30, 1911 in the Lidové noviny7 newspaper,
but after many years the publishing rendition was decided to be separated, most

7
Leoš Janáček - Po zarostlém chodníčku (Prague, Bärenreiter Edition, 2006. BA 9502).
13
likely because of the programmatic implications, since all the works in the first
book have titles.

This second book was published in full by the Czech national publishing house
Hudební matice in 1942, showing a musical language that is situated in the
extremities of the tonal system.

Usually, this book tends to be very much ignored, since there are only a couple of
recordings of it, without any reviews or analysis of the pieces, not in even in
Czech. Therefore, in our analysis we will try to point out all the observations
strictly from an empirical point of view, without being supported by a specialised
bibliography. In this respect, we will also draw some performing
recommendations based on Jiri Hlinka’s pianistic pedagogy.

10. The “Rusophilia” of Janáček

In this chapter, we will investigate the political context of Czech Republic at the
end of the nineteenth century, precisely on the tendency of cultural unification of
all the slavonic countries under the same entity. Russia’s political ideology, its
sovereignty, and its independence, supported by a strong sense of solidarity, was
considered by the political leaders of the time as an infallible system.

Backing this endeavour, we will present several details of how this Russian trend
developed in Janáček’s works. Starting from linguistics (Janáček was speaking
Russian language at an advanced level) and literature, to trips to Russia. In 1898,
Janáček founded the Russian Circle in Brno, together with other enthusiasts of
Russian culture. Janáček was also the president of the Circle between 1909 and
1915. The main goal of the Circle was to discover and study the Russian language

14
and literature, and Olga, his daughter, was an active member of the Circle,
traveling in 1917 to Saint Petersburg to study thoroughly the Russian culture. 8

After this, John Tyrrell sends some links towards elements of Russian culture and
traditions that inspired Janáček even from some of his first compositions, such as
the Russian Orthodox chants that he incorporated in early choral works, or even
late influences, such as his first string quartet, which is based on a programme of
Tolstoy’s novella, The Kreutzer Sonata. Furthermore, we will present remarks
about the manuscript of Janáček’s melodrama Death, which is based on text by
Mikhail Lermontov or even the plot of his opera Káťa Kabanová, based on The
Storm, a theatre drama signed by Alexander Ostrovsky.

Getting back to his piano works, we note his Fairy-tale (Pohádka) for cello and
piano, inspired by the prose poem The Tale of Tsar Berendey, signed by Vasily
Zhukovsky.

Also, in the light of our own concert experiences, and since the second recital of
our research included both books of On an Overgrown Path together with
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, we will present an analytical point of
view about the possible influence of Mussorgsky on Janáček’s musical language.
This is still a subject under debate in the international musicological area.

In this regard, we will focus especially on some parallels that belong to

symbolism, as is the case with the last movement of On an Overgrown Path (The
barn owl has not flown away!) and the second theme of Baba-Yaga by
Mussorgsky. Following the presentation of several points of view, we conclude
that the Russian influence in Janáček’s works is a considerable one, but comes

8
Přemysl Vrba - Ruský kroužek v Brně a Leoš Janáček (The Russian Circle of Brno and Leoš
Janáček), 58th volume of Hudebni matice, Brno, 1960, p. 75.
15
through the unifying cultural context, hence Janáček developed an independent
aesthetic system to Mussorgsky’s.

11. The Distinct Notion of Programmatism:

“the speech melodies” in Sonata 1. X. 1905 and In the Mists.
In the end of the second part of our research, we aim to present the most
representative compositional element in Janáček’s piano works – speech melodies
(nápěvky mluvy). It is specifically this technique of style that represents the base
of the transcendental dimension of his programmatic works.

We would like to mention the fact that the descriptivism of the transcendental
phenomenon belongs to us entirely, but the study regarding literary elements in
Czech language and their implementation in Janáček’s music is picked up from
the work of Hanna Mirette, Leoš Janáček: The Theory of Speech Melody in His
Piano Sonata 1.X.1905 and In The Mists, published in 2019 at the University of
Miami, Florida, USA.

Thus, this analysis of both the language components belonging to Janáček’s

sprechgesang is constituted with the following elements: stressed and unstressed
syllables from the Moravian dialect, the sudden stops between phrases, the
layering of emotions and folk influence, rhythmic units, bird motifs, articulation
and rhetoric technique.

16
 Third part
Janáček’s Chamber Works.
Antithesis of Symphonic Grandeur.

12. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1914)

If in the first two parts of our research we managed to include the vast majority of
works for solo piano by Janáček, the subject of this final part mirrors the most
important chamber music works that include piano.

In this chapter, the Violin Sonata is presented firstly in its historical context and
later analysed from two parallel perspectives – the melodic evolution, on one
hand, and the rhythmical elements, on the other. We chose specifically these two
reference points because the details regarding harmony and tonal / modal barriers
are more appropriate for a musicological research and from the structural point of
view, the works does not present any significant innovations. The melody and
rhythm though, are being treated under the care of folk influences in Moravia,
such as plenty speech melodies typical of Janáček, inspired by the sounds of
nature that act as a descriptive tool of his homeland.

In 1914, the First World War breaks out. Following the forming of alliances with
the Russian Empire, Janáček was forced to destroy all the pro-Russian documents
in Brno and stop all the activities inside the Russian Circle, being labelled as
“political suspect”.9

The sudden response of Janáček regarding the breakout of war was the conception
of this sonata, illustrating his own state of uncertainty.

9
According to the article signed by Danjela Žeželj-Gualdi, Leoš Janáček’s Violin Sonata And
How It Compares To The Violin Sonatas Of Brahms And Debussy (University of Athens,
Georgia, USA, 2006), p. 14.
17
The first movement of the sonata, Con moto, can be analysed as a
monothematically structure without development.

The Ballade was the movement finished first from this sonata, being written
around 1913, when it was also published as an independent work.10

The third movement, Allegretto, presents a three-verse structure, mirroring the

usual scherzo movement, while the last part, Adagio, is a genuine epilogue with
tendencies of dumka, constantly oscillating from a tonal point of view between
minor and major keys.

13. Concertino (1925)

The thirteenth chapter presents the Concertino, including at the same time a
subchapter about the semiotic analysis in this work. There are being highlighted
technical elements, the joint texture of timbres and performing notions which send
direct links to the main subtitle of our research, transcendence through
Programmatism.

Just like numerous other late works of Janáček, the Concertino had programmatic
origins. More precisely, the work is portraying scenes with young Janáček in
nature, wandering together with the animals. The programme for the Concertino
was supposed to invoke the same spirit from his opera The Cunning Little Vixen
(finished two years before, in 1923) – a hedgehog, a squirrel, an owl and an entire
group of forest creatures.

The structural analysis about the musical language was largely constituted based
on our own level of understanding, but this chapter includes a supplementary
segment with a study on the semiotics inside the Concertino, submitted by the

10
Ian Horsbrugh - Leoš Janáček; The Field that Prospered (Ed. Scribner, New York, 1982), p.
101.
18
Finnish musicologist Tomi Mäkelä. We would like to mention that this segment
is considered supplementary simply because of its orientation outside the
performing area, and the information presented in this study does not reflect our
own position. The general context at the semiotic level is, of course, englobed in
the musicological field, but it can represent a fresh point of view in trying to
understand the work at a deeper level.

14. Fairy-tale (Pohádka) for cello and piano (1910)

The current chapter emphasises the three-movement work for cello and piano.
This is rather an overview of its programmatic details, according to the fairy-tale
by Zhukovsky, presenting a brief analysis of musical language.

Just as we remembered in the tenth chapter, the Fairy-tale was inspired by a prose
poem signed by Vasily Zhukovsky (1783 – 1852), entitled The Tale of Tsar
Berendey, representing yet another sample of Janáček’s interest towards Russian
culture.

Even if the work presents a programmatic inclination, we had some difficulties

identifying precise links in the relation between the original story and the
development of the musical work. However, Janáček’s Fairy-tale thrives as a
work in three movements, oscillating at the structural level between rondo and the
sonata form.

15. “Defiance” Capriccio for Piano Left-Hand and Chamber

Ensemble (1926)
This chapter presents Janáček’s second work in the concerto genre. The work
itself presents a different sonic universe, especially because of the orchestral
apparatus, where one can find numerous solo interventions between instruments
that are extremely contrasting when it comes to timbre quality, such as piccolo
19
and tuba. Popularly named the “defiance” caprice, we will consider the work as a
dark sense of humour of Janáček to the idea of war, a defiance made through
musical puns, such as the above mentioned unique instrumental relations.

In the familiar fashion of the precedent chapters, the Capriccio is also presented
firstly in its historical context, and later analysed musically, but with some newly
added references regarding orchestration.

At a comparative note with the Concertino, Janáček presents in his Capriccio an

ensemble composed of flute (doubled piccolo), two trumpets, three trombones and
tenor tuba or euphonium. Ian Horsbrugh remarks the fact that there may be a
possible trend of inspiration of Janáček when it comes to woodwind and brass
instruments, since Sinfonietta was conceived in a similar manner in the same
year.11 Even so, we can observe a rather atypical compositional phenomenon in
the assignment of plenty of virtuosic passages to the trombones, comparatively
with the rather simplistic score of the flute – a substitution of orchestral attributes.
Moreover, we also remark the incorporation of the piano much more into the
ensemble, and its solo position is not as evident as it was in the Concertino.

The chapter continues with the analysis of music language at the macro level, in
the light of Jaroslav Vogel’s critical opinion in his biographical work about
Janáček.12

16. Comparative Analysis of Recordings

In this last analytical chapter of our research, we will focus to the space of artistic
expression and performing differences of some of Janáček’s piano works. Given

11
Ian Horsbrugh – Leoš Janáček, The field that prospered (Ed. David & Charles, Londra, 1981),
p. 199.
12
Jaroslav Vogel - Leoš Janáček: a biography (Ed. Orbis, Londra, 1981), p. 344.
20
the empirical approach of our research, descendent of Jiri Hlinka’s piano school,
we were surprised to observe significant contrasts in various performances of
concert pianists educated in the same approach.

This finding satisfied our curiosities, since it portrays a vast universe of

performing possibilities that the Janáček works expose, despite the rigorous
details in the score of some works.

The pieces that were critically observed in this chapter are the first book of On an
Overgrown Path, the 1. X. 1905 sonata, and the sonata for violin and piano.

Conclusions

In the conclusive section, we move our attention to the answers of some key-
questions that were raised at the start of our research. Thus, in this chapter, we
address the following issues:

• Why Janáček’s works do not attract the same interest for younger pianists
as works from the same period of other composers?

• How pianistic is the language of Janáček’s, in relation to the symphonic

approach of piano works from the same period?

• Which are the main factors that determine the transcendental character of
Janáček’s piano works?

• The sum of musical features (style, melodies, rhythm) in Janáček present a

sound universe that belongs to which musical current precisely?

21
Later, we present the most important empirical challenges and documentation
obstacles that we faced along our research, exposing in an appreciative light the
existence of some specialised works, both when it comes to pedagogical
understanding, but also musicological, and which represented a considerable
support for this study.

We conclude with a suggestion that is strictly referring to the subtitle of our

research – the support of the transcendental dimension of Janáček’s language is
marked as an outcome of emotional direction of the whole concert programme.
The dramaturgical analysis of the works with higher emotional impact (Sonata 1.
X. 1905 or the first book of On an Overgrown Path) indicate us that the possibility
of reaching the full potential of their programmatic level is highly connected to
their position in overall order of the recital.

22
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31