Emil Viklicky Trio – Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018] [SACD / Venus Records – VHGD-287]
![Emil Viklicky Trio - Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2025/11/19/l8hfPbW.jpg "Emil Viklicky Trio - Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018]")
Title: Emil Viklicky Trio – Sinfonietta: The Janacek Of Jazz (2009) [Japan 2018]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
Leos Janácek (1854-1928) is considered to rank with Antonin Dvorak and Bedrich Smetana as one of the most important Czech composers. Janácek was inspired by Moravian and Slavic folk music, which he incorporated in a modern, highly original synthesis. His work attained its mature form first in the 1904 opera Jenufa (often called the ‘Moravian national opera’), and later with the symphonic poem Sinfonietta, and other chamber works and operas. A century later, Chech pianist Emil Viklicky, like Janácek, has taken the music of his native Moravia and melded it into a larger mainstream, in this case American-style jazz. In fact, Emil has written jazz arrangements of several Janácek compositions, three of which are heard in this collection: the two previously mentioned and a third, ‘In the Mists.’ The other tracks are a combination of traditional Moravian folksong (re-worked into a jazz context) and Emil’s own compositions.
Emil Vicklický is the acknowledged “Patriarch of Czech Jazz Piano.” Known for combining the melodism and tonalities of Moravian folk music with modern jazz harmonies and classical orchestration in a distinctly individual style, Vicklický grew up in the former Czechoslovakia, where his father was a university art professor. He graduated in 1971 from Palacky University with a degree in mathematics. He composes straight-ahead jazz as well as chamber and orchestral works, often utilizing a combination of classical and jazz performers. As a pianist, Viklicky has performed in numerous international ensembles alongside musicians from the U.S. and other European countries, including the Lou Blackburn International Quartet, the Benny Bailey Quintet, and multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson. He has also worked with fellow Czech, saxophonist Jaroslav Jakubovic, and often accompanied Czech jazz singer Eva Olmerová, during the last years of her career. As a composer, Viklicky has attracted attention abroad primarily for having created a synthesis of the expressive elements of modern jazz with the melodicism and tonalities of Moravian folk song that is distinctly individual in contemporary jazz. Besides this, however, he also composes “straight-ahead” modern jazz as well as chamber and orchestral works that utilize certain elements of the New Music, and at times his music requires a combination of classical and jazz performers. He also composes incidental and film music and has produced scores for several full-length feature films and television series. Throughout the 1990s he devoted an increasing amount of time to the composition of contemporary classical music for a great variety of instrumental combinations ranging from small chamber ensembles and electronic instruments to symphony orchestras and choruses.
