Janáček: Sinfonietta zene

Haruki Murakami: 1Q84 (angol)

Idézetek

hunny>!

The taxi's radio was tuned to a classical FM broadcast. Janáček's Sinfonietta – probably not the ideal music to hear in a taxi caught in traffic.

(első mondat)

Kapcsolódó szócikkek: Janáček: Sinfonietta
hunny>!

How many people could recognize Janáček's Sinfonietta after hearing just the first few bars? Probably somewhere between „very few” and „almost none.” But for some reason, Aomame was one of the few who could.
Janáček composed his little symphony in 1926. He originally wrote the opening as a fanfare for a gymnastics festival. Aomame imagined 1926 Czechoslovakia: The First World War had ended, and the country was freed from the long rule of the Hapsburg Dynasty. As they enjoyed the peaceful respite visiting central Europe, people drank Pilsner beer in cafés and manufactured hangsome light machine guns. Two years earlier, in utter obscurity, Franz Kafka had left the world behind. Soon Hitler would come out of nowhere and gobble up this beautiful little country in the blink of an eye, but at the time no one knew what hardships lay in store for them. This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: „At the time, no one knew what was coming.” Listening to Janáček's music, Aomame imagined the carefree winds sweeping across the plains of Bohemia and thought about the vicissitudes of history.
In 1926, Japan's Taisho Emperor died, and the era name was changed to Showa. It was the beginning of a terrible, dark time in this country, too. The short interlude of modernism and democracy was ending, giving way to fascism.

3. oldal

hunny>!

Leoš Janáček was born in a village in Moravia in 1854 and died in 1928. The article included a picture of him in his later years. Far from bald, his head was covered by a healthy thatch of white hair. It was so thick that Aomame couldn't tell much about the shape of his head. Sinfonietta was composed in 1926. Janáček had endured a loveless marriage, but in 1917, at the age of sixty-three, ha met and fell in love with a married woman named Kamila. He had been suffering through a slump, but his encounter with Kamila brought back a vigorous creative urge, and he published one late-career masterpiece after another.
He and Kamila were walking in a park one day when they came across an outdoor concert and stopped to listen. Janáček felt a surge of joy go through his entire body, and the motif for his Sinfonietta came to him. Something seemed to snap in his head, he recounted years later, and he felt enveloped in ecstasy. By chance, he head been asked around that time to compose a fanfare for a major athletic event. The motif that came to him in the park and the motif of the fanfare became one, and the Sinfonietta was born. The „small symphony” label is ordinary enough, but the structure is utterly nontraditional, combining the radiant brass of the festive fanfare with the gentle central European string ensemble to produce a unique mood.

110. oldal

Kapcsolódó szócikkek: Janáček: Sinfonietta · Leoš Janáček
hunny>!

Aomame went to a record store near Jiyugaoka Station to look for Janáček's Sinfonietta. Janáček was not a very popular composer. The Janáček section was quite small, and only one record contained Sinfonietta, a version with George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. The A side was Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. She knew nothing about these performances, but since there was no other choice, she bought the LP.

111. oldal

Kapcsolódó szócikkek: Bartók Béla · Janáček: Sinfonietta · Széll György