121-746: Leoš Janáček ( Czech: [ˈlɛoʃ ˈjanaːtʃɛk] , 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, music theorist , folklorist , publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic music, including Eastern European folk music, to create an original, modern musical style. Born in Hukvaldy , Janáček demonstrated musical talent at an early age and was educated in Brno , Prague, Leipzig , and Vienna. He then returned to live in Brno, where he married his pupil Zdenka Schulzová and devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research. His earlier musical output
242-556: A chill which developed into pneumonia. He died on 12 August 1928 in Ostrava , at the sanatorium of Dr. L. Klein, at the age of 74. He was given a large public funeral that included music from the last scene of his Cunning Little Vixen . He was buried in the Field of Honour at the Central Cemetery, Brno. Janáček worked tirelessly throughout his life. He led the organ school, was a professor at
363-548: A discourse of short, 'unfinished' phrases comprising constant repetitions of short motifs which gather momentum in a cumulative manner." Janáček named these motifs " sčasovky " (singular sčasovka ) in his theoretical works. " Sčasovka " has no strict English equivalent, but John Tyrrell , a leading specialist on Janáček's music, describes it as "a little flash of time, almost a kind of musical capsule, which Janáček often used in slow music as tiny swift motifs with remarkably characteristic rhythms that are supposed to pepper
484-538: A divorce, but the couple agreed to settle for an "informal" divorce. From then on, until Janáček's death, they lived separate lives in the same household. Eventually Janáček lost interest in Horvátová. In 1917, he began his lifelong, inspirational and unrequited passion for Kamila Stösslová , who neither sought nor rejected his devotion. Janáček pleaded for first-name terms in their correspondence. In 1927, she finally agreed and signed herself " Tvá Kamila " (Your Kamila) in
605-501: A given meter. Syncopated rhythms contradict those conventions by accenting unexpected parts of the beat. Playing simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature is called polyrhythm . In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. The most highly cited of these recent scholars are Maury Yeston , Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff , Jonathan Kramer , and Justin London. A melody
726-646: A greater or lesser degree. Context and many other aspects can affect apparent dissonance and consonance. For example, in a Debussy prelude, a major second may sound stable and consonant, while the same interval may sound dissonant in a Bach fugue. In the Common practice era , the perfect fourth is considered dissonant when not supported by a lower third or fifth. Since the early 20th century, Arnold Schoenberg 's concept of "emancipated" dissonance, in which traditionally dissonant intervals can be treated as "higher," more remote consonances, has become more widely accepted. Rhythm
847-510: A letter, which Zdenka found. This revelation provoked a furious quarrel between Zdenka and Janáček, though their living arrangements did not change – Janáček seems to have persuaded her to stay. In 1928, the year of his death, Janáček confessed his intention to publicize his feelings for Stösslová. Max Brod had to dissuade him. Janáček's contemporaries and collaborators described him as mistrustful and reserved, but capable of obsessive passion for those he loved. His overwhelming passion for Stösslová
968-618: A long professional and personal relationship with theatre critic, dramatist and translator Max Brod . In the same year, Jenůfa , revised by Kovařovic, was finally accepted by the National Theatre. Its performance in Prague in 1916 was a great success, and brought Janáček his first acclaim. Following the Prague première, he began a relationship with singer Gabriela Horváthová, which led to his wife Zdenka's attempted suicide and their "informal" divorce. A year later (1917), he met Kamila Stösslová ,
1089-529: A long value comprising the length of a rhythmical unit. Janáček used the combination of their mutual action widely in his own works. As well as his contributions to music journals, Janáček also wrote essays, reports, reviews, feuilletons, articles and books, regularly contributing such content to local newspapers in Brno. His work in this area comprises around 380 individual items. Janáček's literary legacy represents an important illustration of his life, public work and art. A selection of Janáček's many publications
1210-415: A more all-encompassing use of musical resources. His operas, in particular, demonstrate the use of "speech"-derived melodic lines, folk and traditional material, and complex modal musical argument . He would also inspire music theorists (among them Jaroslav Volek ) to place modal development at the same level of importance as harmony in music. Along with Dvořák and Smetana, he is generally considered one of
1331-451: A new and original musical aesthetic based on a deep study of the fundamentals of folk music. Janáček's deep and lifelong affection for Russia and Russian culture represents another important element of his musical inspiration. In 1888 he attended the Prague performance of Tchaikovsky 's music, and met the older composer. Janáček profoundly admired Tchaikovsky, and particularly appreciated his highly developed musical thought in connection with
SECTION 10
#17328583241811452-480: A new generation of Czech composers including several of his students. Today he is considered one of the most important Czech composers, along with Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana . Leoš Janáček, son of schoolmaster Jiří Janacek and Amalie (née Grulichová) Janáčková , was born in Hukvaldy , Moravia (then part of the Austrian Empire ) on 3 July 1854. He was born with six surviving siblings, and baptised as Leo Eugen. He
1573-718: A particular composition. During the Baroque period, emotional associations with specific keys, known as the doctrine of the affections , were an important topic in music theory, but the unique tonal colorings of keys that gave rise to that doctrine were largely erased with the adoption of equal temperament. However, many musicians continue to feel that certain keys are more appropriate to certain emotions than others. Indian classical music theory continues to strongly associate keys with emotional states, times of day, and other extra-musical concepts and notably, does not employ equal temperament. Consonance and dissonance are subjective qualities of
1694-755: A period of fifty years, from 1877 to 1927. He wrote and edited the Hudební listy journal, and contributed to many specialist music journals, such as Cecílie , Hlídka and Dalibor . He also completed several extensive studies, as Úplná nauka o harmonii (The Complete Harmony Theory), O skladbě souzvukův a jejich spojův (On the Construction of Chords and Their Connections) and Základy hudebního sčasování (Basics of Musical Sčasování ). In his essays and books, Janáček examined various musical topics, forms, melody and harmony theories, dyad and triad chords, counterpoint (or "opora", meaning "support") and devoted himself to
1815-453: A personal, modern style in relative isolation from contemporary modernist movements but was in close contact with developments in modern European music. His path towards the innovative "modernism" of his later years was long and solitary, and he achieved true individuation as a composer around his 50th year. Sir Charles Mackerras , the Australian conductor who helped promote Janáček's works on
1936-471: A piano student of Amálie Wickenhauserová-Nerudová, with whom he co-organized chamber concertos and performed in concerts over the following two years. In February 1876, he was voted Choirmaster of the Beseda brněnská Philharmonic Society. Apart from an interruption from 1879 to 1881, he remained its choirmaster and conductor until 1888. From October 1879 to February 1880, he studied piano, organ, and composition at
2057-488: A pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong , the "Yellow Bell." He then heard phoenixes singing. The male and female phoenix each sang six tones. Ling Lun cut his bamboo pipes to match the pitches of the phoenixes, producing twelve pitch pipes in two sets: six from the male phoenix and six from the female: these were called the lülü or later the shierlü . Apart from technical and structural aspects, ancient Chinese music theory also discusses topics such as
2178-512: A science of sounds". One must deduce that music theory exists in all musical cultures of the world. Music theory is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales , consonance and dissonance , and rhythmic relationships. There is also a body of theory concerning practical aspects, such as the creation or the performance of music, orchestration , ornamentation , improvisation, and electronic sound production. A person who researches or teaches music theory
2299-609: A short documentary Fotograf a muzika (The Photographer and the Music) about the Czech photographer Josef Sudek and his relationship to Janáček's work. In 1983 the Brothers Quay produced a stop motion animated film, Leoš Janáček: Intimate Excursions , about Janáček's life and work, and in 1986 the Czech director Jaromil Jireš made Lev s bílou hřívou (Lion with the White Mane), which showed
2420-779: A surging or "pushed" attack, or fortepiano ( fp ) for a loud attack with a sudden decrease to a soft level. The full span of these markings usually range from a nearly inaudible pianissississimo ( pppp ) to a loud-as-possible fortissississimo ( ffff ). Greater extremes of pppppp and fffff and nuances such as p+ or più piano are sometimes found. Other systems of indicating volume are also used in both notation and analysis: dB (decibels), numerical scales, colored or different sized notes, words in languages other than Italian, and symbols such as those for progressively increasing volume ( crescendo ) or decreasing volume ( diminuendo or decrescendo ), often called " hairpins " when indicated with diverging or converging lines as shown in
2541-463: A theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings . The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these texts dates from before 1500 BCE, a millennium earlier than surviving evidence from any other culture of comparable musical thought. Further, "All the Mesopotamian texts [about music] are united by the use of a terminology for music that, according to the approximate dating of
SECTION 20
#17328583241812662-457: A tone comprises. Timbre is principally determined by two things: (1) the relative balance of overtones produced by a given instrument due its construction (e.g. shape, material), and (2) the envelope of the sound (including changes in the overtone structure over time). Timbre varies widely between different instruments, voices, and to lesser degree, between instruments of the same type due to variations in their construction, and significantly,
2783-678: A tradition of other treatises, which are cited regularly just as scholarly writing cites earlier research. In modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology , the wider study of musical cultures and history. Guido Adler , however, in one of the texts that founded musicology in the late 19th century, wrote that "the science of music originated at the same time as the art of sounds". , where "the science of music" ( Musikwissenschaft ) obviously meant "music theory". Adler added that music only could exist when one began measuring pitches and comparing them to each other. He concluded that "all people for which one can speak of an art of sounds also have
2904-467: A young married woman 38 years his junior, who was to inspire him for the remaining years of his life. He conducted an obsessive and (on his side at least) passionate correspondence with her, of nearly 730 letters. From 1917 to 1919, deeply inspired by Stösslová, he composed The Diary of One Who Disappeared . As he completed its final revision, he began his next 'Kamila' work, the opera Káťa Kabanová . In 1920, Janáček retired from his post as director of
3025-399: Is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. Timbre, sometimes called "color", or "tone color," is the principal phenomenon that allows us to distinguish one instrument from another when both play at the same pitch and volume, a quality of a voice or instrument often described in terms like bright, dull, shrill, etc. It is of considerable interest in music theory, especially because it
3146-410: Is a group of musical sounds in agreeable succession or arrangement. Because melody is such a prominent aspect in so much music, its construction and other qualities are a primary interest of music theory. The basic elements of melody are pitch, duration, rhythm, and tempo. The tones of a melody are usually drawn from pitch systems such as scales or modes . Melody may consist, to increasing degree, of
3267-789: Is a music theorist. University study, typically to the MA or PhD level, is required to teach as a tenure-track music theorist in a US or Canadian university. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by western music notation. Comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. Music theory textbooks , especially in the United States of America, often include elements of musical acoustics , considerations of musical notation , and techniques of tonal composition ( harmony and counterpoint ), among other topics. Several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of
3388-453: Is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. It is part of a chord, but is not one of the chord tones (1 3 5 7). Typically, in the classical common practice period a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs when there
3509-402: Is called an interval . The most basic interval is the unison , which is simply two notes of the same pitch. The octave interval is two pitches that are either double or half the frequency of one another. The unique characteristics of octaves gave rise to the concept of pitch class : pitches of the same letter name that occur in different octaves may be grouped into a single "class" by ignoring
3630-464: Is common in folk music and blues . Non-Western cultures often use scales that do not correspond with an equally divided twelve-tone division of the octave. For example, classical Ottoman , Persian , Indian and Arabic musical systems often make use of multiples of quarter tones (half the size of a semitone, as the name indicates), for instance in 'neutral' seconds (three quarter tones) or 'neutral' thirds (seven quarter tones)—they do not normally use
3751-587: Is derived from the Greek music scale, and that Arabic music is connected to certain features of Arabic culture, such as astrology. Music is composed of aural phenomena; "music theory" considers how those phenomena apply in music. Music theory considers melody, rhythm, counterpoint, harmony, form, tonal systems, scales, tuning, intervals, consonance, dissonance, durational proportions, the acoustics of pitch systems, composition, performance, orchestration, ornamentation, improvisation, electronic sound production, etc. Pitch
Leoš Janáček - Misplaced Pages Continue
3872-399: Is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. Because of the ever-expanding conception of what constitutes music , a more inclusive definition could be the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence. This is not an absolute guideline, however; for example, the study of "music" in
3993-594: Is given below. Janáček came from a region characterized by its deeply rooted folk culture , which he explored as a young student under Pavel Křížkovský. His meeting with the folklorist and dialectologist František Bartoš (1837–1906) was decisive in his own development as a folklorist and composer, and led to their collaborative and systematic collections of folk songs. Janáček became an important collector in his own right, especially of Lachian , Moravian Slovakian , Moravian Wallachian and Slovakian songs. From 1879, his collections included transcribed speech intonations. He
4114-419: Is often referred to as "separated" or "detached" rather than having a defined or numbered amount by which to reduce the notated duration. Violin players use a variety of techniques to perform different qualities of staccato. The manner in which a performer decides to execute a given articulation is usually based on the context of the piece or phrase, but many articulation symbols and verbal instructions depend on
4235-427: Is one component of music that has as yet, no standardized nomenclature. It has been called "... the psychoacoustician's multidimensional waste-basket category for everything that cannot be labeled pitch or loudness," but can be accurately described and analyzed by Fourier analysis and other methods because it results from the combination of all sound frequencies , attack and release envelopes, and other qualities that
4356-521: Is produced by the sequential arrangement of sounds and silences in time. Meter measures music in regular pulse groupings, called measures or bars . The time signature or meter signature specifies how many beats are in a measure, and which value of written note is counted or felt as a single beat. Through increased stress, or variations in duration or articulation, particular tones may be accented. There are conventions in most musical traditions for regular and hierarchical accentuation of beats to reinforce
4477-554: Is the lowness or highness of a tone , for example the difference between middle C and a higher C. The frequency of the sound waves producing a pitch can be measured precisely, but the perception of pitch is more complex because single notes from natural sources are usually a complex mix of many frequencies. Accordingly, theorists often describe pitch as a subjective sensation rather than an objective measurement of sound. Specific frequencies are often assigned letter names. Today most orchestras assign concert A (the A above middle C on
4598-473: The Quadrivium liberal arts university curriculum, that was common in medieval Europe , was an abstract system of proportions that was carefully studied at a distance from actual musical practice. But this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries and is generally included in modern scholarship on the history of music theory. Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses
4719-480: The Beseda brněnská , as a response to criticism, but a rapid decline in Beseda 's performance quality led to his recall in 1882. His married life, settled and calm in its early years, became increasingly tense and difficult following the death of his daughter, Olga, in 1903. Years of effort in obscurity took their toll, and almost ended his ambitions as a composer: "I was beaten down", he wrote later, "My own students gave me advice – how to compose, how to speak through
4840-566: The Brno Conservatory but continued to teach until 1925. In 1921, he attended a lecture by the Indian philosopher-poet Rabindranath Tagore and used a Tagore poem as the basis for the chorus The Wandering Madman (1922). In the early 1920s, Janáček completed his opera The Cunning Little Vixen , which had been inspired by a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek in the newspaper Lidové noviny . In Janáček's 70th year (1924), his biography
4961-602: The Czech Philharmonic , sometimes adjusted Janáček's scores, mainly for their instrumentation and dynamics; some critics sharply attacked him for doing so. Talich re-orchestrated Taras Bulba and the Suite from Cunning Little Vixen justifying the latter with the claim that "it was not possible to perform it in the Prague National Theatre unless it was entirely re-orchestrated". Talich's rearrangement rather emasculated
Leoš Janáček - Misplaced Pages Continue
5082-553: The Haná region of central Moravia . Most of his achievements in this field were published in 1899–1901 though his interest in folklore would be lifelong. His compositional work was still influenced by the declamatory, dramatic style of Smetana and Dvořák . He expressed very negative opinions on German neo-classicism and especially on Wagner in the Hudební listy journal, which he founded in 1884. The death of his second child, Vladimír, in 1890
5203-729: The Leipzig Conservatory . While there, he composed Thema con variazioni for piano in B-flat, subtitled Zdenka's Variations . Dissatisfied with his teachers (among them Oscar Paul and Leo Grill), and denied a studentship with Camille Saint-Saëns in Paris, Janáček moved on to the Vienna Conservatory , where from April to June 1880, he studied composition with Franz Krenn . He concealed his opposition to Krenn's neo-romanticism, but he quit Josef Dachs 's classes and further piano study after he
5324-526: The National Theatre in Prague , refused to stage Janáček's opera Jenůfa . From the early 1890s, Janáček led the mainstream of folklorist activity in Moravia and Silesia , using a repertoire of folk songs and dances in orchestral and piano arrangements. Many of the tunes he used had been recorded by him but a second source was Xavera Běhálková who sent him 70 to 100 tunes that she had gathered from around
5445-574: The Sinfonietta was used by the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer for the song "Knife-Edge" on their 1970 debut album . Music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music . The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the " rudiments ", that are needed to understand music notation ( key signatures , time signatures , and rhythmic notation );
5566-573: The Sinfonietta , the Glagolitic Mass , the rhapsody Taras Bulba , two string quartets, and other chamber works. Many of Janáček's later works were influenced by Czech and Russian literature, his pan-Slavist sentiments, and his infatuation with Kamila Stösslová . After his death in 1928, Janáček's work was heavily promoted on the world opera stage by the Australian conductor Charles Mackerras , who also restored some of his compositions to their original, unrevised forms. In his homeland he inspired
5687-596: The Svatopluk Artisan's Association (1873–1876). In 1874, he enrolled at the Prague organ school, under František Skuherský and František Blažek. His student days in Prague were impoverished; with no piano in his room, he had to make do with a keyboard drawn on his tabletop. His criticism of Skuherský's performance of the Gregorian mass was published in the March 1875 edition of the journal Cecilie and led to his expulsion from
5808-572: The "horizontal" aspect. Counterpoint , which refers to the interweaving of melodic lines, and polyphony , which refers to the relationship of separate independent voices, is thus sometimes distinguished from harmony. In popular and jazz harmony , chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. For example, a lead sheet may indicate chords such as C major, D minor, and G dominant seventh. In many types of music, notably Baroque, Romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension
5929-663: The Austrian police in 1915. In 1906, he approached the Czech poet Petr Bezruč , with whom he later collaborated, composing several choral works based on Bezruč's poetry. These included Kantor Halfar (1906), Maryčka Magdónova (1908), and 70.000 (1909). Janáček's life in the first decade of the 20th century was complicated by personal and professional difficulties. He still yearned for artistic recognition from Prague. He destroyed some of his works, others remained unfinished. Nevertheless, he continued composing, and would create several remarkable choral, chamber, orchestral and operatic works,
6050-873: The House of the Dead , the third act of which would be found on his desk after his death. In January 1928, he began his second string quartet, the Intimate Letters , his "manifesto on love". Meanwhile, the Sinfonietta was performed in London, Vienna and Dresden. In his later years, Janáček became an international celebrity. He became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1927, along with Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith . In August 1928, he took an excursion to Štramberk with Kamila Stösslová and her son Otto, but caught
6171-422: The House of the Dead , which transformed Dostoevsky 's vision of the world into an exciting collective drama. One of Janáček's early influences was Antonín Dvořák, whom he always deeply admired and to whom he dedicated some of his works. He rearranged part of Dvořák's Moravian Duets for mixed choir with original piano accompaniment. In the early years of the 20th century, Janáček became increasingly interested in
SECTION 50
#17328583241816292-608: The Tolstoy novel , and the Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters" . Milan Kundera called these compositions the peak of Janáček's output. Janáček established a school of composition in Brno. Among his notable pupils were Jan Kunc , Václav Kaprál , Vilém Petrželka , Jaroslav Kvapil , Osvald Chlubna , Břetislav Bakala and Pavel Haas . Most of his students neither imitated nor developed Janáček's style, which left him no direct stylistic descendants. According to Milan Kundera, Janáček developed
6413-700: The Western tradition. During the thirteenth century, a new rhythm system called mensural notation grew out of an earlier, more limited method of notating rhythms in terms of fixed repetitive patterns, the so-called rhythmic modes, which were developed in France around 1200. An early form of mensural notation was first described and codified in the treatise Ars cantus mensurabilis ("The art of measured chant") by Franco of Cologne (c. 1280). Mensural notation used different note shapes to specify different durations, allowing scribes to capture rhythms which varied instead of repeating
6534-535: The amorous inspiration behind Janáček's works. In Search of Janáček is a Czech documentary directed in 2004 by Petr Kaňka, made to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Janáček's birth. An animated cartoon version of The Cunning Little Vixen was made in 2003 by the BBC , with music performed by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and conducted by Kent Nagano . A re-arrangement of the opening of
6655-470: The chord C major may be described as a triad of major quality built on the note C . Chords may also be classified by inversion , the order in which the notes are stacked. A series of chords is called a chord progression . Although any chord may in principle be followed by any other chord, certain patterns of chords have been accepted as establishing key in common-practice harmony . To describe this, chords are numbered, using Roman numerals (upward from
6776-479: The circumstances in which "speech melodies" changed, the psychology and temperament of speakers and the coherence within speech, all of which helped render the dramatically truthful roles of his mature operas, and became one of the most significant markers of his style. Janáček took these stylistic principles much farther in his vocal writing than Modest Mussorgsky , and thus anticipates the later work of Béla Bartók . The stylistic basis for his later works originates in
6897-402: The difference in octave. For example, a high C and a low C are members of the same pitch class—the class that contains all C's. Musical tuning systems, or temperaments, determine the precise size of intervals. Tuning systems vary widely within and between world cultures. In Western culture , there have long been several competing tuning systems, all with different qualities. Internationally,
7018-483: The early months of 1887, he sharply criticized the comic opera The Bridegrooms , by Czech composer Karel Kovařovic , in a Hudební listy journal review: "Which melody stuck in your mind? Which motif? Is this dramatic opera? No, I would write on the poster: 'Comedy performed together with music', since the music and the libretto aren't connected to each other". Janáček's review apparently led to mutual dislike and later professional difficulties when Kovařovic, as director of
7139-657: The figure, motive, semi-phrase, antecedent and consequent phrase, and period or sentence. The period may be considered the complete melody, however some examples combine two periods, or use other combinations of constituents to create larger form melodies. A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously . These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, constitute chords. Chords and sequences of chords are frequently used in modern Western, West African, and Oceanian music, whereas they are absent from
7260-564: The first occasion he took his daughter Olga to Saint Petersburg , where she stayed to study Russian. Only three months later, he returned to Saint Petersburg with his wife because Olga had become very ill. They took her back to Brno , but her health worsened. Janáček expressed his painful feelings for his daughter in a new work, his opera Jenůfa , in which the suffering of his daughter had transfigured into Jenůfa's. When Olga died in February 1903, Janáček dedicated Jenůfa to her memory. The opera
7381-514: The first type (technical manuals) include More philosophical treatises of the second type include The pipa instrument carried with it a theory of musical modes that subsequently led to the Sui and Tang theory of 84 musical modes. Medieval Arabic music theorists include: The Latin treatise De institutione musica by the Roman philosopher Boethius (written c. 500, translated as Fundamentals of Music )
SECTION 60
#17328583241817502-406: The graphic above. Articulation is the way the performer sounds notes. For example, staccato is the shortening of duration compared to the written note value, legato performs the notes in a smoothly joined sequence with no separation. Articulation is often described rather than quantified, therefore there is room to interpret how to execute precisely each articulation. For example, staccato
7623-1002: The greatest music had no sounds. [...] Even the music of the qin zither , a genre closely affiliated with Confucian scholar-officials, includes many works with Daoist references, such as Tianfeng huanpei ("Heavenly Breeze and Sounds of Jade Pendants"). The Samaveda and Yajurveda (c. 1200 – 1000 BCE) are among the earliest testimonies of Indian music, but properly speaking, they contain no theory. The Natya Shastra , written between 200 BCE to 200 CE, discusses intervals ( Śrutis ), scales ( Grāmas ), consonances and dissonances, classes of melodic structure ( Mūrchanās , modes?), melodic types ( Jātis ), instruments, etc. Early preserved Greek writings on music theory include two types of works: Several names of theorists are known before these works, including Pythagoras ( c. 570 ~ c. 495 BCE ), Philolaus ( c. 470 ~ ( c. 385 BCE ), Archytas (428–347 BCE ), and others. Works of
7744-423: The harmonic progression I– ♭ VII, which he considered a general characteristic of this region's folk music. Janáček partly composed the original piano accompaniments to more than 150 folk songs, respectful of their original function and context, and partly used folk inspiration in his own works, especially in his mature compositions. His work in this area was not stylistically imitative; instead, he developed
7865-426: The interval between adjacent tones is called a semitone , or half step. Selecting tones from this set of 12 and arranging them in patterns of semitones and whole tones creates other scales. The most commonly encountered scales are the seven-toned major , the harmonic minor , the melodic minor , and the natural minor . Other examples of scales are the octatonic scale and the pentatonic or five-tone scale, which
7986-486: The invitation of Rosa Newmarch . A number of his works were performed in London, including his first string quartet, the wind sextet Youth , and his violin sonata. Shortly after, and still in 1926, he started to compose a setting to an Old Church Slavonic text. The result was the large-scale orchestral Glagolitic Mass . The world première of Janáček's lyrical Concertino for piano, two violins, viola, clarinet, French horn and bassoon took place in Brno in 1926. Around
8107-476: The key-note), per their diatonic function . Common ways of notating or representing chords in western music other than conventional staff notation include Roman numerals , figured bass (much used in the Baroque era ), chord letters (sometimes used in modern musicology ), and various systems of chord charts typically found in the lead sheets used in popular music to lay out the sequence of chords so that
8228-402: The material. Moravian folk songs, compared with their Bohemian counterparts, are much freer and more irregular in their metrical and rhythmic structure, and more varied in their melodic intervals. In his study of Moravian modes, Janáček found that the peasant musicians did not know the names of the modes and had their own ways of referring to them. He used the term "Moravian modulation" to describe
8349-428: The methods and concepts that composers and other musicians use in creating and performing music. The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments , and other artifacts . For example, ancient instruments from prehistoric sites around the world reveal details about the music they produced and potentially something of
8470-438: The moral character of particular modes. Several centuries later, treatises began to appear which dealt with the actual composition of pieces of music in the plainchant tradition. At the end of the ninth century, Hucbald worked towards more precise pitch notation for the neumes used to record plainchant. Guido d'Arezzo wrote a letter to Michael of Pomposa in 1028, entitled Epistola de ignoto cantu , in which he introduced
8591-646: The most important Czech composers. The operas of his mature period, Jenůfa (1904), Káťa Kabanová (1921), The Cunning Little Vixen (1924), The Makropulos Affair (1926) and From the House of the Dead (after a novel by Dostoevsky and premièred posthumously in 1930) are considered his finest works. The Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras became very closely associated with Janáček's operas. Janáček's chamber music, while not especially voluminous, includes works which are widely considered twentieth-century classics, particularly his two string quartets : Quartet No. 1, "The Kreutzer Sonata" inspired by
8712-530: The most notable being the 1914 cantata, Věčné evangelium ( The Eternal Gospel ), Pohádka ( Fairy tale ) for 'cello and piano (1910), the 1912 piano cycle V mlhách ( In the Mists ), his violin sonata , and his first symphonic poem Šumařovo dítě ( A Fiddler's Child ). His fifth opera, Výlet pana Broučka do měsíce , composed from 1908 to 1917, has been characterized as the most "purely Czech in subject and treatment" of all of Janáček's operas. In 1916, he started
8833-572: The music of many other parts of the world. The most frequently encountered chords are triads , so called because they consist of three distinct notes: further notes may be added to give seventh chords , extended chords , or added tone chords . The most common chords are the major and minor triads and then the augmented and diminished triads . The descriptions major , minor , augmented , and diminished are sometimes referred to collectively as chordal quality . Chords are also commonly classed by their root note—so, for instance,
8954-669: The music of other European composers. His opera Destiny was a response to another significant and famous work in contemporary Bohemia – Louise , by the French composer Gustave Charpentier . The influence of Giacomo Puccini is apparent particularly in Janáček's later works, for example in his opera Káťa Kabanová . Although he carefully observed developments in European music, his operas remained firmly connected with Czech and Slavic themes. Janáček published music theory works, essays and articles over
9075-439: The musical flow." Janáček's use of these repeated motifs demonstrates a remote similarity to minimalist composers ( Charles Mackerras called Janáček "the first minimalist composer"). Janáček was deeply influenced by folklore and Eastern European folk music, and by Moravian folk music in particular, but not by the pervasive, idealized 19th century romantic folklore variant. He took a realistic, descriptive and analytic approach to
9196-447: The musical theory that might have been used by their makers. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music-making. Many cultures have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises and music notation . Practical and scholarly traditions overlap, as many practical treatises about music place themselves within
9317-399: The musician may play accompaniment chords or improvise a solo. In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches ( tones , notes ), or chords . The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line , or
9438-497: The nature and functions of music. The Yueji ("Record of music", c1st and 2nd centuries BCE), for example, manifests Confucian moral theories of understanding music in its social context. Studied and implemented by Confucian scholar-officials [...], these theories helped form a musical Confucianism that overshadowed but did not erase rival approaches. These include the assertion of Mozi (c. 468 – c. 376 BCE) that music wasted human and material resources, and Laozi 's claim that
9559-492: The opera Jenůfa (often called the "Moravian national opera"), which premiered in 1904 in Brno. In the following years, Janáček became frustrated with a lack of recognition from Prague, but this was finally relieved by the success of a revised edition of Jenůfa at the National Theatre in 1916, which gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen ,
9680-633: The orchestra". Success in 1916 – when Karel Kovařovic finally decided to perform Jenůfa in Prague – brought its own problems. Janáček grudgingly resigned himself to the changes forced upon his work. Its success brought him into Prague's music scene and the attentions of soprano Gabriela Horvátová [ cs ] , who guided him through Prague society. Janáček was enchanted by her. On his return to Brno, he appears not to have concealed his new passion from Zdenka, who responded by attempting suicide. That Christmas, after Janáček suspected Zdenka of sending Horvátová an anonymous letter, Zdenka tried to instigate
9801-617: The organ. One of his classmates, František Neumann , later described Janáček as an "excellent pianist, who played Beethoven symphonies perfectly in a piano duet with a classmate, under Křížkovský's supervision". Křížkovský found him a problematic and wayward student but recommended his entry to the Prague Organ School. Janáček later remembered Křížkovský as a great conductor and teacher. Janáček originally intended to study piano and organ but eventually devoted himself to composition. He wrote his first vocal compositions while choirmaster of
9922-444: The performance or perception of intensity, such as timbre, vibrato, and articulation. The conventional indications of dynamics are abbreviations for Italian words like forte ( f ) for loud and piano ( p ) for soft. These two basic notations are modified by indications including mezzo piano ( mp ) for moderately soft (literally "half soft") and mezzo forte ( mf ) for moderately loud, sforzando or sforzato ( sfz ) for
10043-598: The performer's technique. The timbre of most instruments can be changed by employing different techniques while playing. For example, the timbre of a trumpet changes when a mute is inserted into the bell, the player changes their embouchure, or volume. A voice can change its timbre by the way the performer manipulates their vocal apparatus, (e.g. the shape of the vocal cavity or mouth). Musical notation frequently specifies alteration in timbre by changes in sounding technique, volume, accent, and other means. These are indicated variously by symbolic and verbal instruction. For example,
10164-622: The period of 1904–1918, but Janáček composed most of his output – and his best known works – in the last decade of his life. Much of Janáček's work displays great originality and individuality. It employs a vastly expanded view of tonality , uses unorthodox chord spacings and structures, and often, modality : "there is no music without key . Atonality abolishes definite key, and thus tonal modulation .... Folksong knows of no atonality." Janáček features accompaniment figures and patterns, with (according to Jim Samson ) "the on-going movement of his music...similarly achieved by unorthodox means; often
10285-584: The piano) to the frequency of 440 Hz. This assignment is somewhat arbitrary; for example, in 1859 France, the same A was tuned to 435 Hz. Such differences can have a noticeable effect on the timbre of instruments and other phenomena. Thus, in historically informed performance of older music, tuning is often set to match the tuning used in the period when it was written. Additionally, many cultures do not attempt to standardize pitch, often considering that it should be allowed to vary depending on genre, style, mood, etc. The difference in pitch between two notes
10406-471: The practice of using syllables to describe notes and intervals. This was the source of the hexachordal solmization that was to be used until the end of the Middle Ages. Guido also wrote about emotional qualities of the modes, the phrase structure of plainchant, the temporal meaning of the neumes, etc.; his chapters on polyphony "come closer to describing and illustrating real music than any previous account" in
10527-749: The problems of Russian society. He was twenty-two years old when he wrote his first composition based on a Russian theme: a melodrama, Death , set to Lermontov's poem. In his later works, he often used literary models with sharply contoured plots. In 1910 Zhukovsky's Tale of Tsar Berendei inspired him to write the Fairy Tale for Cello and Piano . He composed the rhapsody Taras Bulba (1918) to Gogol's short story, and five years later, in 1923, completed his first string quartet, inspired by Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata . Two of his later operas were based on Russian themes: Káťa Kabanová , composed in 1921 to Alexander Ostrovsky 's play The Storm , and his last work, From
10648-404: The quarter tone itself as a direct interval. In traditional Western notation, the scale used for a composition is usually indicated by a key signature at the beginning to designate the pitches that make up that scale. As the music progresses, the pitches used may change and introduce a different scale. Music can be transposed from one scale to another for various purposes, often to accommodate
10769-457: The range of a vocalist. Such transposition raises or lowers the overall pitch range, but preserves the intervallic relationships of the original scale. For example, transposition from the key of C major to D major raises all pitches of the scale of C major equally by a whole tone . Since the interval relationships remain unchanged, transposition may be unnoticed by a listener, however other qualities may change noticeably because transposition changes
10890-408: The relationship of the overall pitch range compared to the range of the instruments or voices that perform the music. This often affects the music's overall sound, as well as having technical implications for the performers. The interrelationship of the keys most commonly used in Western tonal music is conveniently shown by the circle of fifths . Unique key signatures are also sometimes devised for
11011-462: The rhythm, pitch contour and inflections of normal Czech speech (specifically Moravian dialects ) helped create the very distinctive vocal melodies of his opera Jenůfa (1904), whose 1916 success in Prague was the turning point in his career. In Jenůfa , Janáček developed and applied the concept of "speech melodies" ( Czech : nápěvky mluvy ) to build a unique musical and dramatic style quite independent of "Wagnerian" dramatic method. He studied
11132-604: The rudimentary character allows a very vigorous kind of expression". The Czech conductor, composer and writer Jaroslav Vogel wrote what was for a long time considered the standard biography of Janáček in 1958. It first appeared in German translation, and in the Czech original in 1963. The first English translation came out in 1962 and it was later re-issued, in a version revised by Karel Janovický , in 1981. Charles Mackerras regarded it as his "Janáček bible". Janáček's life has been featured in several films. In 1974 Eva Marie Kaňková made
11253-556: The same fixed pattern; it is a proportional notation, in the sense that each note value is equal to two or three times the shorter value, or half or a third of the longer value. This same notation, transformed through various extensions and improvements during the Renaissance, forms the basis for rhythmic notation in European classical music today. D'Erlanger divulges that the Arabic music scale
11374-581: The same time, Janáček began work on a comparable chamber work for an even more unusual set of instruments, the Capriccio for piano left hand, flute, two trumpets, three trombones and tenor tuba, was written for pianist Otakar Hollmann , who lost the use of his right hand during World War I. It premièred in Prague on 2 March 1928. In 1927 – the year of the Sinfonietta's first performances in New York, Berlin and Brno – he began to compose his final operatic work, From
11495-478: The school, but Skuherský relented, and on 24 July 1875 Janáček graduated with the best results in his class. On his return to Brno he earned a living as a music teacher, and conducted various amateur choirs . From 1876 he taught music at Brno's Teachers' Institute. Among his pupils there was Zdenka Schulzová, daughter of Emilian Schulz, the Institute director. She was later to be Janáček's wife. In 1876, he also became
11616-402: The second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third is a sub-topic of musicology that "seeks to define processes and general principles in music". The musicological approach to theory differs from music analysis "in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built." Music theory
11737-538: The sonority of intervals that vary widely in different cultures and over the ages. Consonance (or concord) is the quality of an interval or chord that seems stable and complete in itself. Dissonance (or discord) is the opposite in that it feels incomplete and "wants to" resolve to a consonant interval. Dissonant intervals seem to clash. Consonant intervals seem to sound comfortable together. Commonly, perfect fourths, fifths, and octaves and all major and minor thirds and sixths are considered consonant. All others are dissonant to
11858-521: The specific sounds and contrasts of Janáček's original, but was the standard version for many years. Charles Mackerras started to research Janáček's music in the 1960s, and gradually restored the composer's distinctive scoring. The critical edition of Janáček's scores is published by the Czech Editio Janáček . Janáček belongs to a wave of twentieth-century composers who sought greater realism and greater connection with everyday life, combined with
11979-487: The study of the mental composition. His theoretical works stress the Czech term "sčasování", Janáček's specific word for rhythm, which has relation to time ( čas in Czech), and the handling of time in music composition. He distinguished several types of rhythm ( sčasovka ): " znící " (sounding) – meaning any rhythm, " čítací " (counting) – meaning smaller units measuring the course of rhythm; and " scelovací " (summing) –
12100-441: The style of Smetana. According to Charles Mackerras, he tried to destroy Janáček professionally. In 2006 Josef Bartoš, the Czech aesthetician and music critic, described Janáček as a "musical eccentric" who clung tenaciously to an imperfect, improvising style, but Bartoš appreciated some elements of Janáček's works and judged him more positively than Nejedlý. Janáček's friend and collaborator Václav Talich , former chief-conductor of
12221-437: The styles of Wagner and Smetana. Performance practices were conservative, and actively resistant to stylistic innovation. During his lifetime, Janáček reluctantly conceded to Karel Kovařovic's instrumental rearrangement of Jenůfa , most noticeably in the finale, in which Kovařovic added a more "festive" sound of trumpets and French horns, and doubled some instruments to support Janáček's "poor" instrumentation. The score of Jenůfa
12342-409: The system known as equal temperament is most commonly used today because it is considered the most satisfactory compromise that allows instruments of fixed tuning (e.g. the piano) to sound acceptably in tune in all keys. Notes can be arranged in a variety of scales and modes . Western music theory generally divides the octave into a series of twelve pitches, called a chromatic scale , within which
12463-743: The teachers institute and grammar school in Brno, and collected transcriptions of folk songs, conversations and animal vocalisations, all while composing. From an early age, he presented himself as an individualist and his firmly formulated opinions often led to conflict. He unhesitatingly criticized his teachers, who considered him a defiant and anti-authoritarian student, yet his own students found him to be strict and uncompromising. Vilém Tauský , one of his pupils, described his encounters with Janáček as somewhat distressing for someone unused to his personality and noted that Janáček's characteristically staccato speech rhythms were reproduced in some of his operatic characters. In 1881, Janáček gave up his leading role with
12584-545: The texts, was in use for over 1,000 years." Much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed. The Lüshi chunqiu from about 238 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun . On order of the Yellow Emperor , Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick and even nodes. Blowing on one of these like
12705-521: The theme for his next opera, Osud ( Destiny ). In 1905, Janáček attended a demonstration in support of a Czech university in Brno, where the violent death of František Pavlík, a young joiner, at the hands of the police inspired his piano sonata, 1. X. 1905 ( From The Street ). The incident led him to further promote the anti-German and anti-Austrian ethos of the Russian Circle , which he had co-founded in 1897 and which would be officially banned by
12826-515: The use of Russian folk motifs. Janáček's Russian inspiration is especially apparent in his later chamber, symphonic and operatic output. He closely followed developments in Russian music from his early years, and in 1896, following his first visit to Russia, he founded a Russian Circle in Brno. Janáček read Russian authors in their original language. Their literature offered him an enormous and reliable source of inspiration, though this did not blind him to
12947-745: The word dolce (sweetly) indicates a non-specific, but commonly understood soft and "sweet" timbre. Sul tasto instructs a string player to bow near or over the fingerboard to produce a less brilliant sound. Cuivre instructs a brass player to produce a forced and stridently brassy sound. Accent symbols like marcato (^) and dynamic indications ( pp ) can also indicate changes in timbre. In music, " dynamics " normally refers to variations of intensity or volume, as may be measured by physicists and audio engineers in decibels or phons . In music notation, however, dynamics are not treated as absolute values, but as relative ones. Because they are usually measured subjectively, there are factors besides amplitude that affect
13068-405: The world's opera stages, described his style as "... completely new and original, different from anything else ... and impossible to pin down to any one style". According to Mackerras, Janáček's use of whole-tone scale differs from that of Debussy , his folk music inspiration is absolutely dissimilar from Dvořák's and Smetana's, and his characteristically complex rhythms differ from the techniques of
13189-406: The young Stravinsky . The French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez , who interpreted Janáček's operas and orchestral works, called his music surprisingly modern and fresh: "Its repetitive pulse varies through changes in rhythm, tone and direction." He described his opera From the House of the Dead as "primitive, in the best sense, but also extremely strong, like the paintings of Léger , where
13310-466: Was a gifted child in a family of limited means, and showed an early musical talent in choral singing. His father wanted him to follow the family tradition and become a teacher, but he deferred to Janáček's obvious musical abilities. In 1865, young Janáček enrolled as a ward of the foundation of the St Thomas's Abbey, Brno , where he took part in choral singing under Pavel Křížkovský and occasionally played
13431-467: Was a pioneer and propagator of ethnographic photography in Moravia and Silesia. In October 1909 he acquired an Edison phonograph and became one of the first to use phonographic recording as a folklore research tool. Several of these recording sessions have been preserved, and were reissued in 1998. Czech musicology at the beginning of the 20th century was strongly influenced by Romanticism, in particular by
13552-419: Was a touchstone for other writings on music in medieval Europe. Boethius represented Classical authority on music during the Middle Ages, as the Greek writings on which he based his work were not read or translated by later Europeans until the 15th century. This treatise carefully maintains distance from the actual practice of music, focusing mostly on the mathematical proportions involved in tuning systems and on
13673-455: Was appointed director of the organ school, and held this post until 1919, when the school became the Brno Conservatory . In the mid-1880s, Janáček began composing more systematically. Among other works, he created the Four male-voice choruses (1886), dedicated to Antonín Dvořák, and his first opera, Šárka (1887–1888). During this period he began to collect and study folk music, songs and dances. In
13794-603: Was criticised for his piano style and technique. He submitted a violin sonata (now lost) to a Vienna Conservatory competition, but the judges rejected it as being "too academic". Janáček left the conservatory in June 1880, disappointed despite Franz Krenn's very complimentary personal report. One of his classmates and friend in Vienna was composer and pianist Josef Weiss . Janáček returned to Brno where, on 13 July 1881, he married his young pupil, Zdenka Schulzová. In 1881, Janáček founded and
13915-511: Was followed by an attempted opera, Beginning of the Romance (1891) and the cantata Amarus (1897). In the first decade of the 20th century, Janáček composed choral church music including Otčenáš (Our Father, 1901), Constitues (1903) and Ave Maria (1904). In 1901, the first part of his piano cycle On an Overgrown Path was published and gradually became one of his most frequently-performed works. In 1902, Janáček visited Russia twice. On
14036-415: Was influenced by contemporaries such as Antonín Dvořák , but around the turn of the century he began to incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music, as well as his transcriptions of "speech melodies" of spoken language, to create a modern, highly original synthesis. The death of his daughter Olga in 1903 had a profound effect on his musical output; these notable transformations were first evident in
14157-550: Was later restored by Charles Mackerras , and is now performed according to Janáček's original intentions. Another important Czech musicologist, Zdeněk Nejedlý , a great admirer of Smetana and later a communist Minister of Culture, condemned Janáček as an author who could accumulate a lot of material, but was unable to do anything with it. He called Janáček's style "unanimated", and his operatic duets "only speech melodies", without polyphonic strength. Nejedlý considered Janáček rather an amateurish composer, whose music did not conform to
14278-610: Was one of the organizers of the Czech-Slavic Folklore Exhibition , an important event in Czech culture at the end of 19th century. From 1905 he was President of the newly instituted Working Committee for Czech National Folksong in Moravia and Silesia , a branch of the Austrian institute Das Volkslied in Österreich (Folksong in Austria), which was established in 1902 by the Viennese publishing house Universal Edition . Janáček
14399-464: Was performed in Brno in 1904, with reasonable success, but Janáček felt this was no more than a provincial achievement. He aspired to recognition by the more influential Prague opera, but Jenůfa was refused there (twelve years passed before its first performance in Prague). Dejected and emotionally exhausted, Janáček went to Luhačovice spa to recover. There he met Kamila Urválková, whose love story supplied
14520-458: Was published by Max Brod, and he was interviewed by Olin Downes for The New York Times . In 1925, he retired from teaching but continued composing and was awarded the first honorary doctorate to be given by Masaryk University in Brno. In the spring of 1926, he created his Sinfonietta , a monumental orchestral work, which rapidly gained wide critical acclaim. In the same year, he went to England at
14641-558: Was sincere but verged upon self-destruction. Their letters remain an important source for Janáček's artistic intentions and inspiration. His letters to his long-suffering wife are, by contrast, mundanely descriptive. Zdenka seems to have destroyed all hers to Janáček. Only a few postcards survive. In 1874, Janáček became friends with Antonín Dvořák , and began composing in a relatively traditional Romantic style. After his opera Šárka (1887–1888), his style absorbed elements of Moravian and Slovak folk music . His musical assimilation of
#180819