Janáček: Zdenka Variations

Introduction

Better known for his operas and orchestral music, Leos Janácek wrote a small but significant output of piano music. As one might surmise from the opus number here, this is the first of his surviving keyboard efforts. It was written as a present for a former piano student, the 14-year-old Zdenka Schulzova, whom the composer would marry in July 1881. The music is hardly characteristic of Janácek's mature style, divulging the influence of Schumann and Brahms in its piano writing and the spirit of Smetana in its Czech-tinged thematic wares. That said, the music is still quite attractive and well crafted. The theme is gentle and Schumann-esque, reflective and lean in its sparing sonorities. The first variation is lively but unhurried, not breaking much in mood from the theme. The second is fast and muscular, while the third is playful and carefree in its oafish hopping about. The next variation is stately but soon turns stormy, and the fifth and sixth, while subdued, contain the most interesting mixture of Schumann and Brahms, the latter of the pair having perhaps the deepest music in the work. The seventh and final variation is dreamy at the outset, then turns livelier and more colorful, leading back to a reappearance of the opening theme.