greatly significant Czech composer; b. Hukvaldy, Moravia, July 3, 1854; d. Moravská Ostrava, Aug. 12, 1928. Janáček grew up in a musical household, his father being a choirmaster. At the age of 11 he was sent to Brno to serve in the choir of the Augustinian Queen's Monastery. He then attended the German College in Brno from 1869 to 1872.

After college, Janáček held a teaching post and also served as choirmaster of the men's chorus, Svatopluk, from 1873 to 1877, taking the opportunity to study organ at the Prague Organ School. He conducted the Beseda Choral Society in Brno from 1876 to 1888, and also pursued studies at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he took music history and composition courses in 1879-80.

In 1880 Janáček continued his composition studies at the Vienna Conservatory. Returning to Brno the next year, he was appointed the first director of the new organ school. His social position in Brno was enhanced by his marriage to Zdenka Schulzová, daughter of the director of the teachers' training college. He also engaged in scholarly activities, editing the music journal Hudební Listy (Music bulletins) in the mid-1880s, and also collecting Moravian folk songs.

From 1886 to 1902 Janáček taught music at the Brno Gymnasium. In 1919 he retired from his directorship of the Brno Organ School and then taught master classes in Brno from 1920 to 1925. Throughout these busy years he worked diligently on his compositions, showing particular preference for operas.

Janáček's style of composition underwent numerous changes, from ROMANTIC techniques to bold DISSONANT combinations. He was greatly influenced by the Russian musical nationalism and by the new movement to using natural speech rhythms in composing for the stage. He visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1896 and 1902 and published his impressions of the tour in the Brno press.

From 1894 to 1903 Janáček worked on his most important opera, Její pastorkyňa (Her foster daughter). It has a highly dramatic libretto. Set in Moravia in the mid-19th century, the plot includes a gruesome murder of a baby. It was difficult to find a producer for the work in Prague because of its grisly subject. However, it was eventually produced on various European stages, mostly in the German text, under the title JENŮFA (1916).

Another opera by Janáček that attracted attention was Výlet pana Broučka do XV stolen (Mr. Brouček's excursion to the 15th century, 1917). It depicts the imaginary travel of a Czech patriot to the time of the religious struggle mounted by the followers of the nationalist leader Jan Hus against the established church. There followed an operatic fairy tale, Příhody Lišky Bystroušky (The adventures of the vixen Bystrouška, or The cunning little vixen, 1924), and a mystery play, Věc Makropulos (The Makropulos affair, 1926), both enormously successful.

Janáček also composed a symphonic poem, TARAS BULBA (the fictional name of a Ukrainian patriot, after a story by Gogol, written between 1915 and 1918; premiered in Brno in 1921). Like most artists, writers, and composers of Slavic origin, Janáček had a natural interest in the Pan-Slavic movement, which emphasized the common origins of Russian, Czech, Slovak, and other kindred cultures. His Glagolitte Mass (Glagolská mše, 1927) to a Latin text translated into Old Slavonic is an example.

Janáček showed great interest in the emerging Soviet school of composition, even though he refrained from any attempt to join that movement. Although influenced by the modern school of composition of IGOR STRAVINSKY and ARNOLD SCHOENBERG, he was never tempted to experiment along their revolutionary lines. He remained faithful to his own well-defined style, and it was as the foremost composer of modern Czech music that he secured his unique place in history.