Leos Janacek (1854-1928)
Czech State Philharmonic, Brno/José Serebrier
Rec: CD1: 2-5 Apr 1995; Brno CD2: rec 3-7 June 1996
Brno originally issued as Reference Recordings RR-65CD and RR-75CD
REFERENCE RECORDINGS RR-2103 [65.08+59.40]
How admirable that Reference Recordings (a firm associated with high-end sound quality) have embraced the less obvious repertoire. While Janácek is hardly obscure he remains outside the mainstream of concert seasons. It is notable that RR and Serebrier have recorded two volumes of orchestral Janácek and two volumes of orchestral Chadwick (the latter also recently repackaged as a two for the price of one item). May they continue their pursuit of the highest standards of hi-fi using the best of neglected music. I rather hope that they look at some of the orchestral works of Bax. A disc coupling Bax's Sixth Symphony and Winter Legends for piano and orchestra could be an absolute knockout both as an audio exhibition and as an complete artistic experience. Taras and Sinfonietta have become a standard coupling ever since the LP days of Supraphon and Ancerl. So it has continued into the CD era, now approaching twenty years of age. The competition in this sphere is hot. For those wishing to relive analogue splendours, Supraphon will soon have the original Ancerl coupling available in their Ancerl Golden Series and I am hoping to review that at some stage. In addition there are creditable recordings from Naxos, Chandos (Belohlávek on CHAN 241-7), EMI Classics, DG, Decca (VPO/Mackerras) and a small host of alternatives from Supraphon including a historic coupling from Bakala and Jilek. From the momentous rolling fanfares of Sinfonietta the sonorous trumpet choir are sharply placed on high in the aural landscape. The rest of the fruitily burred brass and the tetchily impatient woodwind also convey the impression of being recorded in a big space. The Sinfonietta is one of those works that is a core 'must have' for any general classical collection. Slav without being Russian, exotic without being repugnant, optimistic without being puerile. Janácek's fanfares lodge firmly in the memory and are rivalled in his output only by those in the Glagolitic Mass. This recording, in particular, made me wonder whether Copland heard this work before writing Fanfare for the Common Man. The bass presence is remarkable but once again the great depth of the soundstage contributes to the poetics (track 3). This depth consolidates the sense of Martinu-like plangency. The brass are in resplendent form and their manic death-hunt whooping and barking at 3.51 (track 3) is an audio and musical highlight. This is amongst the finest of modern recordings and interpretations. The Lachian Dances are, as a work, a disappointment by contrast. My first impressions of this work, formed by hearing an LP (Decca, 1971) recording conducted by François Huybrechts (whatever happened to him? Didn't he record Nielsen’s Espansiva as well?) are confirmed by the present disc. Low voltage stuff. The sound picture is just as impressive as for Sinfonietta but the music is so relaxed as to seem casual - almost ordinary. The dances are an addition to the Dvorák Slavonic Dances and Rhapsodies but truth to tell nowhere near as inspired. Highlights include a generous airborne horn section in the second dance and a sprinkling of rustic charm and jollity. Taras is interesting as a piece and is well advocated by the artists. I was struck for the first time by the presence of the harmonium and also by the debt Copland seems again to have owed to Taras. The diffuse self-questioning of the first movement is followed by greater concentration in the second movement. Stabbing, angular, thrusting figures launch heroic contributions from the brass (notably trombones) in steady, deliberate, poised and pulsed heroism. The finale is resonates with the pealing of bells. In Sinfonietta and Taras Reference have two works (especially the former) that are natural 'spectaculars'. You will go a long way to find a better recorded or interpreted big-sound version of these pieces. Sinfonietta bids fair to be the best available version. Taras is impressive but as a piece lacks the compelling invention of the Sinfonietta. As for the Dances they remain a chummy and relaxed make-weight: nice to have but not in themselves the stuff of compulsive acquisition. For the second disc we get some 'pure' Janácek but the two big items are confections assembled by other hands: Talich/Smetacek and Serebrier. The Cunning Little Vixen opera is the most immediately beautiful of his works. The suite begins heavily with chattering and stabbing figures from the orchestra. This is much more successful than Taras Bulba for example. At 4.10 a superb violin dance played with a cogently watery tone by the concertmaster of the Czech State PO. The atmosphere speaks of magic and woodland pools before the first section ends in crashing tragedy. The second and final part leaves the Lachian Dances way behind with all their inconsequential innocence. There is a projection of great emotive power here familiar perhaps from Rimsky's Antar but with much more steel. This is a work of high and refined romance. The two operatic suites sandwich two preludes however everything here derives from the operas. The atmosphere of the Jealousy prelude is of baying unrest as you might expect from the title. There are yelping horns (echoing Sinfonietta), a petulantly swirling violin solo, a trumpet section that is not just stratospheric but ionospheric, playfully complex eddies of romance and great clashing isobars of music. Do get to hear this music. The Prelude to In the House of the Dead is claustrophobically similar to Jealousy with the repeat fanfare at the end rumbling and tumbling in Straussian hysterics. It ends with a reminiscence of Sinfonietta. Serebrier's ‘synthesis’ (a typical project for a Stokowski pupil) includes a dance of the grotesques and positively seethes with aural interest. The squealing violins toss and turn like oiled quicksilver. Barking horns bring the work to a reeling and clawing climactic closure. Reference Recordings have a deserved reputation for big sound which conveys the poetry and subtlety of the quieter passages. That reputation is maintained and by this set. The selection of repertoire is slightly 'off-centre' … and very welcome too. Eight pages of helpful booklet notes by Richard Freed in English only. The only competition I am aware of is the Chandos twofer. This is very good but I prefer the Serebrier Sinfonietta which for me remain a top recommendation. Repertoire across the two sets is not identical. If you missed the separate discs first time around then you have little excuse now when you can get both discs in a single width case for the price of one.
Rob Barnett
And this from andante.com:
Like many early 20th-century Eastern European composers, Leos Janácek (1854–1928) drew inspiration from folk sources — in his case, not only the songs and dances of his native Moravia but everyday speech patterns in the air. This helped him to produce rustic rhythms and piquant textures of undeniable allure and to spin melodies of boundless color. Janácek was a master melodist in whatever setting, from the dusky lines of the opera Kátya Kabanová and the song cycle The Diary of One Who Vanished to the luminous instrumental singing of the solo piano music and his two string quartets.
Janácek's ability to make an orchestra sing is on full display here, thanks to the resourceful José Serebrier and the composer's hometown band, the Czech State Philharmonic of Brno. Janácek rarely wrote for the orchestra alone, but Serebrier bolsters three favorites from among that small symphonic oeuvre with a set of suites and preludes from the operas Jenufa, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Makropoulos Case and From the House of the Dead. This unique collection is made possible via a two-CD reissue (priced as one disc) of a pair of late-'90s Reference albums, each of 24-bit, demonstration-standard recording quality.
Disc One features the tuneful, brass-accented Sinfonietta, the bucolic romp Lachian Dances and the volatile orchestral rhapsody Taras Bulba, which glosses Gogol's tale of the titular 17th-century Cossack hero. The cascading horns in "Fanfares" at the opening of the Sinfonietta cohere ideally under Serebrier, and he brings out the heart-teasing string melody of the slow "Queen's Monastery" section with relish; yet it's the grand peals and percussion of the final movement, "The Town," that show off the Czech players' natural brilliance in this piece — a veritable anthem for Brno. While the Lachian Dances make for sophisticated light music, Taras Bulba is a deeper, more evocative masterpiece, redolent of hard-driven emotions and full of echt-osteuropäisch color; here it is played with both strength but subtlety.
Yet Disc Two, with some of Janácek's key dramatic music in distilled form, is this set's real attraction. It opens with the highlight of the entire collection: the Talich/Smetácek suite from The Cunning Little Vixen, which condenses the 1924 opera down to a transcendent quarter-hour of animal-world atmospherics and sheer sunburst lyricism. The openhearted Brno strings make the music seem like it's as much of a joy to play as it is to hear. The emotions are more mixed in the tone poem Jealousy, which was the prelude to Jenufa before Janácek cut it in favor of a more abrupt opening just prior to the opera's 1904 premiere. Another brief, bittersweet item included is the prelude to Janácek's Dostoevskian opera From the House of the Dead; those familiar with the composer's unfinished Violin Concerto (subtitled "Pilgrimage of the Soul") will recognize the Dead prelude's strangely lyrical motifs, although it is this piece that makes the most direct use of them.
The new and most substantial work in this set is Disc Two's half-hour "symphonic synthesis" of themes from Janácek's 1926 opera The Makropoulos Case. Arranged by Serebrier (the Stokowski protégé is also a composer), the work condenses each of the three acts into an orchestral movement, even though there is far less "pure" orchestral music available in this opera than in, say, The Cunning Little Vixen. Serebrier "grafted" the opera's interwoven instrumental and vocal lines into an orchestral fabric, without changing any of the composer's original, extremely vivid orchestration. The result is an utterly engaging, even moving sequence of music. In another nod to authenticity, Serebrier worked on his orchestration at Janácek's home; in the liner notes, he describes the experience: "Sitting at his desk in Brno, passing by his house daily on the way to the recording sessions, absorbing the air and spirit of his beloved Moravia, I felt the humility that comes over one in the presence of a genius of genuine, striking originality."
Those who have cherished benchmark Janácek recordings by the likes of Rudolf Firkusný (a former student of the composer who recorded the complete piano music for Deutsche Grammophon) and Sir Charles Mackerras (who has conducted all the operas on record for Decca and Supraphon) would do themselves a favor by searching out this economical collection. The inevitable repeat listenings to The Makropoulos Case synthesis and the sublime Cunning Little Vixen suite alone will make the modest cost worthwhile.
© andante Corp. February 2002. All rights reserved.
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