Janáček: Piano Works

Featuring

Danae Dörken
Leoš Janáček

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Janáček's music is characterized by aphorisms and a distinctive melodic style, incorporating rich folkloristic elements that reflect his patriotism and pan-Slavism.

Performer Biography

Pianist Danae Dörken, born in 1991, began piano lessons at age five and won her first competition six months later.

Performer Biography

The renowned violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin was so impressed by Danae Dörken's playing at age seven that he offered to support her musical education, shortly before his unexpected death.

Composer Biography

Leoš Janáček, born in 1854, was the ninth of thirteen children and the fifth of seven sons of a village schoolteacher in Hukvaldy, Moravia.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Leoš Janáček believed that a composer must live with all of nature and society, and that compositions should be a deep expression of one's spiritual life, drenched in one's own blood.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Despite his piano works being comparatively small and lacking virtuosic display, Janáček developed a highly personal musical language in them that reflected his emotional turmoil.

Composer Biography

Janáček's studies at the Conservatory in Vienna ended abruptly when a slow movement of a violin sonata he composed for a competition was rejected as 'too academic'.