Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) wrote his violin sonata in 1914, he did, however, revise it several times before its first performance in 1921. The composer, a dedicated Czech nationalist and pan slavist, remembers "...in the 1914 Sonata for violin and piano I could just about hear sound of the steel clashing in my troubled head..." the people of Moravia were waiting to be liberated by the Russians at the beginning of the First World War and the work is full of suspense and atmosphere. The first performance was given by violinist František Kudláček and pianist Jaroslav Kvapil on 24 April 1922 at a concert of new Moravian music organized by the Young Composer's Club in Brno. Interesting to note that the first performance abroad was in Frankfurt in 1923, violinist was the composer Paul Hindemith.

Here the performers are Jana Vlachova violin and Frantisek Maly piano

The work is in four relatively short and very tightly structured movements:

II. Balada

Nowhere is Janacek more poignant and impressionist than in the Ballada of this sonata, apparently the only movement that remained unchanged during the composer's revisions. The violin sings its charming melody over the rippling piano accompaniment, the piano takes over this melody in an arpeggio statement and is joined by the violin in a sort of after thought, however the violin is the protagonist here and launches a second, slight more urgent melody, again the piano comes in with the arpeggio statement of the first theme that develops fluidly through the exchange of brief motifs in the two instruments. The piano adopts the second theme while the violin soars up and takes it an octave higher. Janacek breaks the second theme into a drier statement while the violin becomes preoccupied with the accompanying semiquaver figure which becomes one of those typical Janacek ostinato sequences - that leads us back to a rhapsodic development of the first theme bringing the violin up to its highest register while the violin reminds of the second theme and we return to Tempo I. With a final fragile restatement of the opening them, broken arpeggios and an echo of the second theme the ballade fades away.