A Study On The Harmony In Leos Janácek’s Two Piano Suits

Leos Janacek,1854—1928，the outstanding representative composer of Czechmodern national school of the20th century. He inherited the tradition of the music ofCezch national school of19th century represented by Bedoich Smetana and AntoninDvorak, developed a national spirit and creative approach. He did not refer to theintegral folk song melodies to creat, but absorted into the part of the essence of theunique folk music-such as the characteristics of the interval, civil tone and so on.Janacek versed in collection and research of Cezch folk songs, he has profoundunderstanding of the folk songs and people’s lives, his musical creation focuses oninnovation based on traditional musical creation system, in the form of scale type,melodic motives, harmonic order into, pattern of rhythm music absorbed and learnedfrom the Czech national folk music elements, makes his works to art treasures inCzech music, he has made outstanding contributions to the development of Czechnational music of the20th century.Two Piano Suites On the Overgrown Path and In the Mists are two highlyrepresentative piano works of Janacek’s creation, belonging to the creation of hismature period with distinctive music image. With the help of musical theoryknowledge, from the perspective of the musical structure, motivation of theme,rhythm and harmony techniques analysis, expand specific studies of these two pianopieces, trying to reveal how his music in the fusion of modern and traditional,dialogue and integration of composition techniques national and Western, to form theunique personality of the harmonic language, to further explore the harmoniestechniques of Janácek and the heritage of music creation,innovative andcomprehensive.This paper firstly is elaborated by the preface and research status at home andabroad, the body is divided into the following four parts: Chapter1:the overviews ofLife and Writing of Janácek.This chapter introduces Janacek’s life and musicalcreation features. Chapter2: Overview analysis of two piano pieces. This chapterrespectively analyze the creative background of two piano suites On the Overgrown Path and In the Mists, the musical structure of the two piano suites, motivation of thetheme as well as rhythm, and strive to capture the overall picture of two works.Chapter3: analysis of techniques of harmony. This chapter is the focus of this paper,from four aspects of structure of the chord, harmony, tuning characteristics and tonalcharacteristics discuss in detail on characteristics of harmonies, which reflects theunique harmonic language of Janacek who focus on fusion of ethnic, classical andromantic music. The conclusion is on the basis of the above research, summarizeJanacek’s musical creation especially characteristics of harmonies, mainly dwell in thehighlight of his various factors based on personality traits, thus further discusses itsinnovative harmony techniques.