Leoš Janáček

Bio

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) was a Czech composer whose music is deeply rooted in the rhythms and inflections of Moravian speech and folk song. Born in Hukvaldy, he studied in Prague, Leipzig, and Vienna before returning to Brno, where he spent most of his career as a teacher and conductor. His mature works, including the operas Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová, and The Cunning Little Vixen, as well as the Sinfonietta and the two string quartets, combine modernist harmonic language with an intense national character. Janáček’s late creative surge produced some of the most distinctive and emotionally direct music of the early twentieth century.