Jenůfa stands at the beginning of Janáček's middle creative period, the years before the incredible artistic outburst that occurred in the last decade of his life. This chapter looks at several other pieces from those years; they represent Janáček's style just before the final masterworks. This music displays considerable advances and refinement beyond the early works examined in chapter 3 without attaining the mature style of the last decade. Musical features mentioned in chapter 5—modes, ostinati, pedals, and static harmonic blocks— continue to appear in the context of nineteenth-century musical language. The harmony displays some ambiguity, but at times it is also simplified, perhaps as a result of the folk influence. Form includes original approaches to established patterns, as well as long-range issues of completion. Music with text relates to specific ideas at a deeper level than before. Rhythm continues to show a special kind of freedom that Janáček relates to the unpredictability of everyday life. Rhythmic structures become more complex, cross-rhythms appearing with increasing frequency. Motives remain dominant, consistently undergoing progressive transformations and in conjunction with rhythmic freedom creating a sense of a living organism.

Three Pieces from On the Overgrown Path

While working on Jenůfa, Janáček composed several short keyboard pieces that eventually became part of the piano collection On the Overgrown Path (Po zarostlém chodníčku). Ten pieces were published in 1911; five others were added afterward. Each of the pieces in the first series has a descriptive title, though these were added only before publication. The music has a personal and introspective character; sometimes it might be seen as reflecting the tragic illness and death of the composer's daughter Olga. The music displays an early form of Janáček's folk-influenced motivic technique based on short repetitive ideas, irregular phrasing, and modality. I shall look at “Our Evenings” (Naše večery) and “Good Night!” (Dobrou noc!), numbers 1 and 7 respectively from the first series; and “Andante,” number 1 from the second series (no. 11 of the entire set).