A Bit o’ Birthday Janacek
Yet another item in the deluge - the cascade, the inundation of CD’s I’m having thrown all over me at the moment - arrived today. It arrived dressed merrily in a snazzy green get-up fresh from the fertile fields of Amazon, that’s the first time that gift wrap has been on this end of a gift exchange from me. Cheers to the folks in Sheffield for the Janacek. My first Janacek (perhaps that should be in all caps for historical significance) in fact. I don’t know precisely, exactly, 100% 
why it was on my wishlist to begin with. I suspect late night NPR sessions are behind it.
Anyway, it sounds like whatever forces stuck it on the list were not misguided, it’s a goodun
Since I don’t know a blind bloody thing about old Leos J, a bit of Wikipedia skimmage was necessary. He was actually born really early, 1853, just a bit after Tchaikovsky, and before Elgar, Mahler, and Debussy (according to this timeline). Apparently he didn’t really do much that was very appreciated until after 1900, when he was about 60. On first listen this seems to gel pretty well, it sounds like firmly 20th century tonality to me.
Actually, the string quartets (which is what I, like, got) sound quite similar to Bartok. Old Janacek was apparently into folk song and modal tonality as well. Nicely, it doesn’t sound quite as vicious as Bartok can, it’s more smoothly romantic and continuously melodic, a bit Shostakovichy even. It sounds promising. The quartets have wickedly enticing names as well: “The Kreutzer Sonata” and “Initmate Letters”. I like named pieces.