Janáček's Sinfonietta
Regular price
€97.99
A01=Jiri Zahradka
A01=Nigel Simeone
Annotated Scores
Author_Jiri Zahradka
Author_Nigel Simeone
Category=AVLA
Category=AVM
Composition
Conductors
Discography
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Jakub Hrusa
Leos Janacek
Musical Text
Orchestral Writing
Performance History
Reception History
Sinfonietta
World War II
Product details
- ISBN 9781837653300
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 24 Feb 2026
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
A definitive study of Janáček's Sinfonietta, tracing its creation, reception, and rise to international prominence.
This book provides a musical 'biography' of Leoš Janáček'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 Janáček'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 Janáček'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 Hrůša, 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.
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 Janáček Compendium (2019) and most recently Ralph Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult (2022) and Edward Elgar and Adrian Boult (2025). JIŘÍ ZAHRÁDKA is Director of the Janáček Archive in Brno and a musicologist. He is the editor of critical editions of many works by Janáček including the Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, Káťa Kabanová, The Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropulos Affair, and author of books on Janáček including acclaimed full-length studies of the operas.
