Janacek's 'Nursery Rhymes' as a compendium of his compositional style

Leos Janacek's Nursery Rhymes (Rikadla, 1925-27) occupy a unique position i n the composer's output. At the same time, they are also among his least di scussed and researched of his works. In his eighteen Nursery Rhymes, Janace k laid bare his most fundamental compositional techniques, concomitantly ma king them an ideal introduction to his style. The author examines two songs in their entirety, The White Goat is Picking Pears and Frankie Plays the B ass, nos. 14 and 7 respectively, applying the nomenclature from Allen Forte 's pitch-class set theory to describe them. He concludes by looking at the ways in which the first nursery rhyme, The Turnip's Wedding (numbered as 2, since the instrumental introduction is number 1) serves as an explosion of the raw materials on which the cycle is based.