Mladi

From Wind Repertory Project
Leoš Janáček

Leoš Janáček


Subtitle: Suite for Wind Sextet

The title translates from the Czech as Youth. The work bears the designation JW VII/10.


General Info

Year: 1924
Duration: c. 17:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Edition Peters
Cost: Score and Parts (print) - $55.00;


Movements

1. Allegro – 3:35
2. Andante sostenuto – 4:45
3. Vivace – 3:40
4. Allegro animato – 4:35


Instrumentation

Full Score
Flute
Oboe
Bassoon
B-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Bass Clarinet
Horn in F


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

The woodwind sextet Youth (Czech: Mládí), (1924) is a chamber composition by Czech composer Leoš Janáček.

The first impulse to compose a woodwind sextet came into Janáček's mind during his visit of the festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music in Salzburg in August 1923. Albert Roussel´s Divertimento for Wind Quintet and Piano was performed here, and it is possible that this composition motivated Janáček's interest to create a similar work. Another important impulse came to Janáček with a short piece called March of the Blue-Boys for piccolo, bells and tambourine (or piano), written in May 1924 as a reminiscence of Janáček's youth in the Old Brno Monastery. The composition was created during Janáček's three weeks stay in Hukvaldy in July, 1924. At the beginning of the autumn 1924, during the rehearsals, Janáček made a number of changes to the score. The premiere took place on October 21, 1924, in Besední dům in Brno. Unfortunately, the performance wasn't very successful. The oboist finally managed to repair a defect of his instrument, but the clarinettist, because of a broken key spring, only pretended to be playing. Janáček was very angry. However, the work was performed in Prague on November 25, 1924, this time with members of the Czech Philharmonic, and the performance was received with great success.

- Program Note from Wikipedia


Janáček found love, albeit unreciprocated, late in his life with the young Kamila Stösslová to whom he wrote 700 letters. One of the products of this genuinely new-found youth was the wind sextet Mládí (Youth) written for his own seventieth birthday in July 1924, only four years before his death. The piece is consciously based on the composer's own youth when he was a chorister in Brno and a pupil of Pavel Křížkovský and in the third movement ,Vivace, it quotes from his March of the Blue Boys.

The Moravian folk melodies of the work's four movements come from the area of Janáček 's birth and have a melodic quality not found in all of the composer's music. Beginning with an Allegro in Rondo form, there follows a slow movement theme and variation in D flat. Then comes the Blue Boys March with its echoes of the composer's own youth. and finally the Allegro animato returns to the opening themes of the work.

- Program Note by David Doughty for liner notes for Naxos CD Dvorak: Serenade for Wind


Awards

  • Prize of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 1925


Commercial Discography


State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project


Works for Winds by This Composer


Resources

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