Janáček: Vzpomínka (A Recollection)

Introduction

This is a late work, dating to the year of Janácek's death. As many know, this Czech composer wrote relatively little music for solo piano, and most of what he did compose for it came early in his career. It is difficult to convey the mood of this stormy piece, but its title, though suggestive of fond but perhaps now-painful memories, does not communicate its unsettled manner, the music wildly vacillating from playfulness and warmth to hesitation and dark frustration, if not outright anger. Some may speculate that the composer's intensifying infatuation in the last year or so of his life with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman half his age and apparently unaware of his desires, may have inspired him in this work, as she had in several of his operas. In any event, this minute-and-a-half piece features a lovely though terse main theme, whose restive, descending manner spawns an array of mood swings in its brief duration. As one of the composer's final works, this ambivalent creation is among his more interesting keyboard efforts.