I made Říkadla (Nursery Rhymes) not only because I found their humorous content amusing, but because I also liked the illustrations of Josef Lada. I have a nice collection now and I?m going to publish them. The Lada's pictures cannot be missing in the book. We have hundreds and thousands of rhymes. I made my choices and set the appropriate ones to music - nevertheless I had a hard time pondering how to make them whole. I was missing both the opening and ending and it kept slipping through my fingers for quite some time before I was able to put my finger on it. Now they are finished and I?m content with them in their entirety. They are composed for various voices and instruments and are frolicsome, witty, cheerful, - that's what I like about them. They're rhymes after all!
Even the seventieth birthday could not disrupt Leoš Janáček's good mood. The memory of childhood and youth deftly forged into the music of a wind sextet entitled Mládí (Youth), a birthday present he gave himself, does not contain even a little bit of nostalgia. On the contrary, it is illuminated by the wisdom of years and also by the humor which was increasingly slipping into Janáček's compositions. Although Janáček was not completely deprived of his fatherly role, he did not live to see the continuity of his family and had not a chance to pass on the heritage as the natural laws of reproduction, persuasively depicted in the charming scenes of Příhody lišky Bystroušky (The Cunning Little Vixen), urge us. The more he lacked his fatherly role the more he was fascinated by the world of children which he had the pleasure of watching both in Hukvaldy and in Písek where his observations gained special undertones thanks to the presence of Mrs. Kamila Stösslová.
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