How I Discovered...JANÁČEK

I discovered Janáček as a high school. Our little town high school did not have an orchestra, just a band and I was a pretty serious percussionist at the time. One day I heard that the university in the next town over was having auditions for their orchestra; they welcomed community members to audition. So I auditioned and made it in. The conductor was this outrageously and wonderfully eccentric woman from London and she decided to program the Janáček “Sinfonietta” for one of our concerts. I had never heard of him, but I was hooked from that first rehearsal of the Sinfonietta.

Hi Dave….lovely idea for a discussion. At my secondary school in the 60s, we had a genius music teacher. Every morning the whole school (600) of us marched into the hall for Assembly. This entry was accompanied by Miss James playing Schubert impromptus, the easier bits of Beethoven sonatas etc. A few notices, then on scratchy LPs we had to listen to a piece of classical music. It ranged from Dowland, through the great symphonists (just a movement), to one of Holst’s Planets, one of the Four Sea interludes from Peter Grimes…and Janacek’s Sinfonietta. I loved all of it, though so many of my friends shifted and fidgeted. I feel so lucky. After a hymn and a prayer, we all filed out again to more excellent piano music. My father was an excellent jazz pianist, but also liked playing Rachmaninov and Bach. My mother sang and accompanied herself in Italian opera and Dvorak. She was an excellent pianist too. I was drenched in wonderful music from dawn to dusk. Now 70, I can look back on a life enchanted, enlivened, delighted, amazed by music. Thank you, Miss James. And thank you Dave for your beautiful enthusiasm for music, opening me up to even more wonders.

One thing that got me deeper into Janacek was the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I saw in 1988 right when it came out. Janacek's string quartets and piano music are used throughout. The film also got me interested in Milan Kundera's books. For the sake of Janacek's operas and Kundera's novels, I decided to learn the Czech language and ended up moving to Olomouc and later Prague.

Since two years ago, the answer to how I discovered many composers is "thanks to David Hurwitz." (Not Janacek though, whom I discovered through Firkusny's recording of his piano music, which I found in the sales bin and bought on a whim.)

First heard Sinfonietta on WQXR while I was visiting New York in my college days (1960?) The next work I became aware of was Mlada (wind sextet) which has a prominent bass clarinet, my instrument in high school. Often tuned in to Prague Radio while stationed in Germany (1964-65).

Shortly after buying the LP "Emerson, Lake and Palmer," in 1970, a friend told me that the first segment of the song "Knife Edge" was based on the Janacek Sinfonietta, which kindled my interest in the composer. I scoured my local local record store and found the 1963 Ančerl - Czech PO recording, which they put on their turntable (remember those days?) and cranked it up on the store sound system, which had plenty of power. It was mind blowing. The Sinfonietta remains my favorite by Janacek.

I came to know him through a video suggestion with a beautiful woman's portrait in the thumbnail... it was his daughter, for whom he composed a elegy for piano tenor and chorus - "Elegie na smrt dcery Olgy"... extremely beautiful and touching, performed by "Pěvecký sbor Čs. rozhlasu/Jan Kasal · Ivo Žídek · Jan Panenka"

I know almost nothing about classical music but do pick up certain composers whenever they appear in Murakami novels and listening to Janacek has been so rewarding.

My own Janacek story is quite similar to yours. I began trying a Kubelik DG disc, in the Galleria series, with contained Taras and the Glagolitic Mass. And it was the Mass that blew my mind. When the last two timpani strokes fade away, I didn't believe those orchestral, organ and vocal sounds were possible. And I also thought "is THAT religious music?". I felt in love inmediately. And some time after I watch my first Janacek opera in TV: Jenufa with Vaclav Neumann and Leonie Rysanek as Kostelnicka from the Teatro Real in Madrid. My first contact not only with Janacek's opera but also with Rysanek. Well, I just can say that even today I get goosebump when I remember that second act with a possesed Leonie. From then after, I just love Janacek!!

My first encounter with Janacek was in the fall of 1986. I was studying in Frankfurt, Germany, at the time, and heard Kat'a Kabanova with the Vienna Phil under Mackerras. The rest is, as the saying goes, listening history...

This is definitely going to be a fun series. Thru my years I have discovered that most people have a good/interesting story behind how they discovered a piece of music or composer.

I'll struggle in this series to differentiate between when I first heard Janacek (not sure, certainly on the radio) and when I first knew I was hearing Janacek. It was a live performance of the Sinfonietta by the Pittsburgh Symphony. It was amazing to see all the brass lined up, the entire breadth of the orchestra. The volume pressed me into my seat. The next day, I ordered the Ancrel recording. My experience illustrates the value of good programming. In the interegnum between Jansons and Honeck, one of the rotating music directors (Torteiler) observed that the orchestra hadn't performed Janacek or Kodaly for years. So various pieces were added to the repertoire. I watched The Unbearable Lightness of Being years before this concert, so evidently I heard Janacek then. Apropos of nothing, I still remember the film has being the least erotic use of the most beautiful naked people I'd ever watched.

Hi Dave. Thanks, as always, for your great commentaries! I discovered Janacek at precisely the same time as you: 1979. A performance of The Makropulos Affair at New York City Opera in an unforgettable multimedia production by the great Frank Corsaro. And then Cunning Little Vixen! In the following summer in performances by the Netherlands Dance Theatre, I was introduced to the Sinfonietta. I went to 5-6 performances just to hear that amazing music live. (I don’t remember anything much of the dancing—a lot of men leaping to the trumpets—but the music has never left me!) A unique and deathless composer! Thanks for sharing about him! 🙏🙏🙌

My first encounter with Janacek was through the film 'The unbearable lightness of being'. I was hooked right from the beginning. Starting with his quartets...there are worse things in life.

My high school German teacher was a polymath and was a proponent of classical music, including in the classroom. Among other things, he played the complete Gurrelieder for German class. He knew I was into classical, so would occasionally share other things with me. One day he gave me a cassette that he'd recorded a few things on. The first item was Sinfonietta. I had no idea what to make of it. It was so weird! But I kept playing it. Again, and again, and again. Didn't take long to hook me!

i first encountered the music of janacek in the second half of the 90s when i moved to east berlin.....back then a lot of smaller local public libraries where discontinued...so they gave there stuff away for free....the bigger public libraries also got rid of their eastern block and russian vinyl records.... so in the course of 2-3 years i got hundreds and hundreds of classical vinyl lps for free...... a lot of the stuff i didn't find that interesting ( some of the records i still haven t thorughly listened to yet) but when i listened to the supraphon janacek lps i was immediately hooked.... so i started collecting janacek records......i have a pop music listeners approach to music ...i only continue listening to recordings if i immediately like it...all the other stuff i through out....janacek reminds me of composers like thelonious monk...his style is very ideosyncratic...very different from all the other 20th century composers i 've listened too so far. the suprphon recordings ( ancerl, jilek, mackerras, jancek quartet, etc...)are still my favorites.

I absolutely love your channel and website Dave! So happy to find a kindred spirit who shares my love of music, especially the Czechs. I first heard Janacek as a 20 year old in the early 90s when I was living in Czechoslovakia. I visited Hukvaldy, Janacek's birth place, and the home he bought later in life that has been converted into a museum. Upstairs was a listening room, and our older Moravian hostess selected the second string quartet. The music was harsh and violent to my young years, disturbing even, but she knew the piece well and was deeply moved to tears. I was fascinated by her intense reaction and desperately wanted to understand what she felt in that music. I spent the next 30 years listening to every Janacek recording I could get my hands on and performance I could attend, and I think I'm starting to understand what she felt. I also got to see Vixen in Brno, Jenufa in Prague, and especially loved a concert of the Moravian Teachers Choir singing his works for male chorus. Thanks again for my favorite channel on YouTube!

I can't remember how and when I first heard his music, but I can certainly remember the lasting impression it made. What I especially love about the composer is that he only hit his stride when a lot of other artists are calling it a day. Encouragement for those of us who are young in spirit but long in the tooth.

I first discovered Janacek with the purchase of the Szell/Cleveland Sinfonietta coupled with the Prokofiev 5th on a CBS LP. I too was wowed after several hearings of the Sinfonietta (the first really complex work I had come across). Of course now, and even soon after, the work blew my mind, and was the start of my becoming a Czechophile. Everything Supraphon became gold to me - and it still is. Then came Taras Bulba. Then came the Glagolitic Mass. But recently, only very recently, I was determined to acquire all the operas, spurred on by the Cunning Little Vixen, which always brings me to tears. My last opera acquired was Gregor's Makropulos Case just before last December to add and virtually complete the operas. I have a mixture of Neumann, Mackerras, Gregor, Jilek as conductors of the operas, and Ancerl in most of the orchestral works. Like yourself, I feel privileged to have discovered Janacek. Thanks initially to Szell in my case.

The Smetana & Janacek Piano Trios on Tacet are one of my favourites. I adore the Piano Trio 'Kreuzersonate' like no other work for chamber ensemble. It's sooo satisfyingly good.