JANACEK, Leos
b Hukvaldy, Moravia, 3 July 1854
d Prague, 12 August 1928, aged seventy-four

The ninth of fourteen children of a poor schoolmaster, he attended a monastery school in Brno and then at fourteen entered the Imperial and Royal Teachers' Training Institute on a state scholarship, staying there for three years. He passed his examinations with honours, and returned to the monastery to teach. Music was becoming more important to him, so he obtained a year's leave, borrowed some money, went to Prague and completed a three-year course at the Organ School in one year. He returned to Brno and the teachers' training school, this time as a music teacher, and he also became director of the Philharmonic Society. Later he spent a short time at the Conservatories of Leipzig and Vienna, studying composition. All his greatest compositions were written during the last twenty-four years of his life. He died of bronchial pneumonia.

1877 (23)

Suite for strings

1880 (26)

Dumka, for violin and piano

1887 (33)

Sarka, opera

1889 (35)

Lachian Dances (6)

1891 (37)

The Beginning of a Romance, opera

Rakos Ra'koczy, ballet

1894-1903 (38-49)

Jenufa, opera

1904 (50)

Osud (Fate), opera

1905-17 (51-63)

Mr Broucek's Excursion to the Moon, opera

1915-18 (61-4)

Taras Bulba, rhapsody for orchestra

1919 (65)

Katya Kabanova, opera (1919-21)

Diary of a Young Man who Disappeared, song cycle

1920 (66)

Ballad of Blanik, symphonic poem

1921 (67)

Violin Sonata

1923 (69)

String Quartet No 1 in E minor

1924 (70)

The Cunning Little Vixen, opera

The Makropoulos Affair, opera (1924-6)

Mlada (Youth), suite for wind

1925 (71)

Sinfonietta (1925-6)

Concertino for piano, two violins,.viola, cello, bassoon and horn

1926 (72)

Capriccio, for piano and wind instruments

Festliche Messe

1927 (73)

From the House of the Dead, opera (1927-8)

Glagolitic Mass

1928 (74)

String Quartet No 2, Intimate Pages