On an Overgrown Path

In part because Moravia faces both east to Poland and Russia, as well as west to Germany and Austria, both European and Eastern features appear in its folk music. In addition, Janáček used modality, whole-tone inflected passages, functional harmony, and key signatures (abandoned in his operas), little counterpoint, and short melodic breaths. Janáček wrote, “The little pieces, On an Overgrown Path contain distant reminiscences. Those reminiscences are so dear to me that I do not think they will ever vanish… Whenever I have a moment to indulge myself undisturbed in these recollections, then I find another such little piece comes to mind. It is on an overgrown path.”

Janáček wrote On an Overgrown Path over the course of the years 1901 and 1908. Six of the set were originally written for harmonium: “Our evenings,” “A blown-away leaf,” “The Frýdek Madonna,” “Good night!,” “The barn owl has not flown away!,” and “Words fail!” (all 1900). The work’s premiere was in Brno on January 6, 1905.

By 1908 he had switched the instrument to piano and had included three more pieces: now he described it as a piano cycle. The cycle finally included ten pieces in 1908, only then acquiring their poetic titles. (The title of the complete cycle, On an Overgrown Path, however, was established in the earliest source, ca. 1900.) On an Overgrown Path was a success and its reception was positive — a first for Janáček. Of the 15 pieces in On an Overgrown Path, numbers 1 through 10 were published in 1911, numbers 11 through 15 in 1942, after his death.

An inspiration for these character pieces may have come from his friend Dvořák’s cycle Cypresses. The overall title refers to a Moravian wedding song in which the bride laments that “the path to my mother’s has become overgrown with clover.” The last three of the set of ten pieces refer to the death of his daughter Olga, 21, of typhoid fever, in 1903. (His only other child, a son, had died at age two.) Janáček’s encompassing of both childhood memories and the tragedies of a parent make this piece uniquely human.

The first six parts of the cycle reference his childhood. “Our evenings” (no. 1), referred to by Janáček as evenings by the fireside, is similar to the “Promenade” from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, appropriately since the piece acts as an introduction.

No. 2, first named “A Declaration of Love” and changed to “A Love Song,” finally became the more mysterious title, “A blown-away leaf.”

“Come with us!” (3) recalled children’s games as a “letter filed away for good.” One characteristic of “Come with us” is Janáček’s use of perfect fourths.

Frýdek is a town in Moravia near Janáček’s birthplace of Hukvaldy. “The Frýdek Madonna” (4) paints a picture of a village procession gathering to honor the Virgin Mary and contains organ-like chords and a motif “sung by a far-off procession.”

“They chattered like swallows” (5) describes the women’s chattering and also imitates the swallow’s song. According to Janáček, “A group returns from an outing late in the day. Their drawn-out song is punctuated by the terse little motif of women’s chatter.”

“Words fail!” (6) is described by Janáček as “the bitterness of disappointment.”

“Good night!” (7) was a metaphor for Olga’s death and reflects “the mood of parting.”

“Unutterable anguish” (8) is explained by its title. The title is the phrase he used
frequently when writing of his feelings about Olga’s long illness, contracted during a stay in Russia.

“In tears” (9), written after Olga’s death, has a specific programmatic reference from Janáček’s life. In a letter he wrote, “Do you sense crying in the penultimate piece? A foreboding of certain death. An angelic being lay in deathly anguish through hot summer nights. Since those times I have ceased to take excursions into the beautiful countryside around Hukvaldy for the pleasure of it.” His wife’s memoir recounts an exchange between father and daughter on the eve of her death: Olga “began to be delirious. My husband leant over her and she said softly: ‘Daddy, it’s so beautiful there, there are just angels there.’ And he said to her fervently, ‘And you’re the most beautiful angel of all.’”

“The barn owl has not flown away!” (10) is a poignant reminder of the fleetingness of life. Janáček writes, “In the final piece an intimate song of life is punctuated by the portentous motif of the barn owl.” In Slavic folklore, the owl is considered a harbinger of death, and Janáček uses a minor third motive to represent the bird. The Czech title word, sýček (barn owl) has a dual meaning, both an owl and someone with a pessimistic outlook on life. “The barn owl has not flown away!” refers to the view of the owl as a foreteller of doom. The owl’s cry alternates with a chordal motif that Janáček calls “an intimate song of life.” The owl — fate — has the last word. Janáček wrote, “All in all, there is suffering beyond words contained here.”

On an Overgrown Path is an excellent example of a musical autobiography.

— Andrea Olmstead