Janá¿ek's Sinfonietta

Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-83765-330-0
Verlag: Boydell Press

Buch, Englisch, 250 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 543 g

Reihe: Twentieth-Century Music

A definitive study of Janácek's Sinfonietta, tracing its creation, reception, and rise to international prominence.

This book provides a musical 'biography' of Leoš Janácek's (1854-1928) most famous orchestral piece - his Sinfonietta - by analysing its sources, composition, reception history, recordings and musical component parts. The most up-to-date research on the genesis and performance history of the work, it considers in detail Janácek's orchestral writing, the inspiration and genesis of the Sinfonietta, a documentation of all the surviving sources for the work, the work's performance history during Janácek's lifetime and following his death until the end of the Second World War, including press reviews and relevant correspondence.

The book also examines the growth in the worldwide popularity of the Sinfonietta. This evolved from cautious and hostile critical responses to the premiere recording in 1946 to its gradual acceptance as one of the key works of the 1920s, largely thanks to the advocacy of conductors whose work is considered in detail, alongside other significant recordings. Questions of performance, rehearsal, interpretation and the musical text are considered in a wide-ranging interview with the conductor Jakub Hruša, and a concluding chapter provides a detailed commentary on the music itself. The book includes a valuable appendix describing the annotated scores used by conductors such as Otto Klemperer, František Neumann and Henry Wood, as well as a comprehensive discography.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Simeone, Nigel

Zahrádka, Ji¿í

Zahrádka, Jirí

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Geschichte der Musik
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen Sinfonische Musik & Ensembles
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikinstrumente Instrumentenunterricht & Lernanleitungen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of illustrations
Foreword by Jakub Hruša

Introduction and acknowledgements
Abbreviations and references

Prologue: Janácek and the orchestra
1. Inspiration - composition - publication
Supplement. Sources: manuscripts and editions
2. The Sinfonietta in Janácek's lifetime: a chronicle
3. The Sinfonietta makes its way into the repertory, 1928-45
4. The Sinfonietta recorded: 1946 onwards.
5. A conductor's perspective: Jakub Hruša in conversation
6. The Sinfonietta: a musical commentary

Appendix: Scores annotated by František Neumann, Otto Klemperer and Henry Wood

Discography
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Zahrádka, Jirí
JIRÍ ZAHRÁDKA is Director of the Janácek Archive in Brno and a musicologist. He is the editor of critical editions of many works by Janácek including the Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, Káta Kabanová, The Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropulos Affair, and author of books on Janácek including acclaimed full-length studies of the operas.

Simeone, Nigel
NIGEL SIMEONE is a scholar, writer and broadcaster specializing in twentieth-century music. He was editor of The Leonard Bernstein Letters (Yale, 2013) and for the Boydell Press has published Charles Mackerras with John Tyrrell (2015), The Janácek Compendium (2019) and most recently Ralph Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult (2022) and Edward Elgar and Adrian Boult (2025).