Daniele, Gianluigi
Leos Janacek: Piano Works (on An Overgrown Path I, In )
Initially conceived for the harmonium, the collection for piano titled On an Overgrown Path consisted of a core of five small pieces written between 1901-1902, coinciding with the composition of the opera Jenufa. During this period, Janacek grappled with the agonizing pain of losing his beloved daughter Olga, which led him to seek solace by immersing himself in memories of his youth. After a few years, the collection expanded to include fifteen pieces. In these delicately written compositions, emotions fade into the subdued sounds of a pure and innocent nature, viewed through the eyes of a child. The misfortune of losing all his children and the continual rejections by the Prague Opera in staging Jenufa left Janacek in a state of great emotional instability. In this frame of mind, he composed the enigmatic collection In the Mists. Unlike On an Overgrown Path, these pieces, first performed in 1914, do not have explanatory titles. The sparse writing of episodes in free form, rhapsodically succeeding one another, expresses a complex and intentionally non-showy pianism. In October 1905, in an occupied Brno, students and workers demanded the establishment of a Czech university. A young man of barely twenty was killed by an Austrian soldier on the street, in front of the concert hall. In protest, Janacek wrote Sonata 1.X.1905, expressing all the pain for the atrocities committed in his occupied homeland. The sonata, summarizing the Czech composer's writing style, currently consists of two movements, and bears witness to Janaceks masterful handling of this form.