JANÁČEK ENSEMBLE (Janáček Brno 2024)

ABOUT

The matinee will recall the tradition of Sunday morning concerts in this theatre, which Leoš Janáček himself attended frequently. And also the deep tradition of brass harmonies, which were an integral part of the life of the Augustinians in Old Brno, where Janáček grew up. However, the matinee programme is entirely focused on music of the twentieth century.

The wind quartet for flute, two clarinets and bassoon was composed by Jaroslav Ježek (1906–1942) in 1929, the year he graduated from Josef Suk’s master school. At that time he had already discovered Paris and its musical variety. All this is evident in the Wind Quartet. Jaroslav Ježek is known today mainly for his jazz work and his collaboration with the Liberated Theatre, but his other works, which are of very high quality, are somewhat neglected these days.

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) gave himself the Youth brass sextet for his seventieth birthday. In the composition, he returns to his youth in Hukvaldy and Old Brno. The remarkable cast also relates to memories of the brass harmonies popular at the time at the Augustinian Abbey in Old Brno, with which Janáček’s childhood and youth are inextricably connected. In the third part we can follow the composer’s musical memory of the Prussian-Austrian War, when in 1866 the Prussians occupied Old Brno and little Leoš was the only one of the singers who stayed in the abbey and experienced these events directly.

The music of Jewish composers is another integral part of our culture. One of the most remarkable of them is certainly Gideon Klein (1919–1945), who, although murdered by the Nazis when he was only twenty-five years old, left an impressive body of work that responded not only to the Second Viennese School, but also clearly to the work of Leoš Janáček. He wrote Divertimento in 1939–40, before the deportation to Terezín, but already in the terrifying reality of the persecution of the Jewish population. All this is imprinted in the unusual composition.

Jiří Zahrádka

Programme

Jaroslav Ježek – Wind Quartet for Flute, Two Clarinets and Bassoon

Leoš Janáček – Wind sextet “Youth”

Gideon Klein – Divertimento for Wind Octet

Cast

Janáček Ensemble