Moravian Folk Poetry in Song, for Voice and Piano

"Moravian folk poetry in song": this was the title Leos Janácek gave, in about 1908, to a collection of 53 Moravian folksongs with piano accompaniment.

Leos Janácek was an artist who was rooted in the people and folk culture of the Lachian region at the Moravian-Silesian border. He loved his native country and was devoted to its folksong. In his view, folk song ha a unifying spirit, in which unadulterated man was revealed in his original culture, not in an adopted one. He approached the accompaniments to the "Moravian folk poetry" in song with the firm intention of preserving the integrity and inherent qualities of the songs.