"In the fog" in a revised version

The piano cycle completed in spring 1912 In the fog (V mlhách) is Janáček's last major piano work and probably also the one in which the influence of musical impressionism is most clearly felt. A few weeks earlier, the composer had heard the pianist Maria Dvořáková perform Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau. Is it a coincidence that the same pianist also played the successful premiere of Janáček's new piano cycle at the end of 1914?

After the work had disappeared from the stage for some time, the pianist Václav Štěpán took a close look at it and encouraged Janáček to make some changes and additions as part of a new edition. The new edition published by G. Henle-Verlag, which was supervised by Jiří Zahrádka, is based on this revised version. A few notational inconsistencies have been carefully corrected and the music has been kept as clear as possible - as we have come to expect from Henle. Above all, the source situation at the end of the third piece now seems to have been clarified: until now, several versions have competed ad libitum for the favor of performers. The fingerings by Dénes Várjon also contribute to the clarity. They usefully supplement those of the revised edition of 1924.

As can be seen from Jiří Zahrádka's preface, which is well worth reading, Ludvík Kundera, a pupil of Janáček and father of the well-known novelist Milan Kundera, was originally supposed to be responsible for the premiere. His most famous novel The unbearable lightness of being was congenially filmed by Philip Kaufman at the end of the 1980s. Isn't it fitting that a passage from "In the Fog" plays the main musical role in this film?

Leoš Janáček: Im Nebel (V mlhách), Urtext edited by Jiří Zahrádka, fingering by Dénes Várjon, HN 1247, € 12.50, G. Henle, in collaboration with Universal Edition, Munich 2017