Leos Janáček
Sinfonietta
Leos Janáček blossomed very late as a composer, although he studied composition, along with piano and organ, beginning in his twenties in Prague. He continued studies at the Leipzig Conser vatory and then the Vienna Conservatory in 1879-80. For many years he made his living as a choirmaster, teacher, and organist in Brno. His early compositions followed the romantic styles of the period, and he was highly influenced by his Czechoslovakian compatriots Smetana and Dvořák. The latter encouraged Janáček when he began sketching his first opera, Šarka, in 1887-8. (Famously, Janáček put this manuscript into a drawer and did not return to it until 30 years later.)
Janáček became interested in Moravian and Silesian folk music in the 1890s, and began collecting and composing songs and dances based upon folk themes. He admired how such music suited the Czech speech, and began developing his own “speech melody” style, in which the rhythmic and pitch patterns of the language were reflected directly in the music. His opera Jenufa, first performed in Brno in 1904, exemplifies this style. The Prague Opera originally rejected the work, but its director, Karel Kovarovic, agreed to perform it if he could reorchestrate it, and the opera finally premiered there in 1916. The Prague premiere was a rousing success and Janáček found himself, at age 62, a “star.” He com posed the best-known works of his career from this time forward, in the last decade of his life.
In 1925, Janáček was inspired by a military band performance to try his own hand at a military brass fanfare. Around the same time he was invited to compose a piece for the Sokol gymnastic festival in Brno, and his work, first titled “Military Sinfonietta,” was the result. Dedicated to the Czechoslovakian armed forces, the work is intended to express, according to the composer, “contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory.” The work’s movements are meant to depict various scenes in Brno in October, 1918, when Czechoslovakia declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the latter’s defeat in World War I. Sinfonietta premiered in Prague in June of 1926, on the same concert with Janáček’s Glagolithic Mass.
Each of the Sinfonettia’s five movements is derived from some portion of the opening motif. The most immediately notable feature of the work is the size of the brass section, requiring 25 brass players, including twelve trumpets. The opening Fanfare (Allegretto – Allegro – Maestoso) employs nine of these trumpets, along with other brass and percussion. The variations favor the open fifth (as a proper fanfare should), and feature everything from falling cascades of brass to pulsing fifths against strikes of the timpani. The Castle (Andante – Allegretto) represents the Brno castle of Spilberk, known for its underground dungeons. Rather than dungeons, however, the movement conjures a constant effect of swirling motion in the woodwinds constrasted with an ostinato in low strings, deep brass chords, and, yes, a noble trumpet fanfare to give a sense of grandeur. The Queen’s Monastery (Moderato) begins as a sweeping, lyrical nocturne, then develops to a dramatic climax with trombone fanfares and an insistent brass chorale. The fourth movement, The Street (Allegretto), depicts the streets of Brno as citizens arrive to celebrate liberation. In this case, the opening fanfare seems like a call to action, as each instrument emerges into the texture until Janáček’s “street” is filled with motion. The Town Hall (Andante con moto) closes the work with wood winds — flutes, clarinet, oboe — playing a minor variation of one of the fanfares over pulsing strings and rising chords in the brass. At the climax all the brass, including all twelve trumpets, are finally heard at once in a triumphal recapitulation of the opening fanfare, and the work ends in majestic jubilation.