Leoš Janáček

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) was a Czech composer, folklorist and teacher, born in Hukvaldy in Moravia. He collected and arranged Moravian folk music, and he is known above all for his operas, from Jenůfa to The Cunning Little Vixen, and for the piano cycle On an Overgrown Path. Janáček studied in Brno, Prague, Leipzig and Vienna, and in 1881 founded the Brno organ school, which became the Brno Conservatory in 1919. His research on Moravian folk song made early use of the phonograph, from 1909. Wider recognition came late, after the 1916 Prague staging of Jenůfa.