Leos Janácek - Orchestral Works - Hyperion: SACDA67517 - SACD

Fans of the Glagolitic Mass should definitely make a beeline for Janácek's 1913 cantata The EternalGospel. Radiating a comparable spiritual and theatrical fervour, it's a setting of a text by... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Release Date: 30th Aug 2005
Catalogue No: SACDA67517
Label: Hyperion
Length: 59 minutes

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Janáček: The Eternal Gospel

Work length18:47

Adrian Thompson (tenor), Gweneth-Ann Jeffers (soprano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Edinburgh Festival Chorus
Ilan Volkov

I. And so it will pass, as written in the scriptures!

Track length3:16

II. See the angel flying, silently soaring

Track length5:25

III. O hearken, you whose heart is faint and wilted!

Track length7:03

IV. All this the angel told me at my vigil

Track length3:03

Janáček: The Ballad of Blaník

Work length8:09

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov

Janáček: The Fiddler's Child

Work length11:54

Elizabeth Layton (violin)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov

Janáček: The Excursions of Mr Broucek – Suite

Work length20:52

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov

I. Introduction: The late evening

Track length3:51

II. Moon waltz

Track length3:51

III. Before dawn

Track length5:46

IV. Song of the Hussites

Track length3:23

V. Procession of the victors

Track length4:01

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The years either side of the First World War were a time of renaissance for the Czech nationand at the heart of this rebirth was the music of Leo Jancek. The Fiddlers Child, a ballad for solo violin (Elizabeth Layton in this exciting new recording) and orchestra, tells a harrowing tale of supernatural malfaisance as a parable for the struggles of a perennially oppressed nation. Such a tone of double meaning is also to be found in The Eternal Gospel: overt religiosity becomes, for Jancek, an expression of the contemporary worlds need for reconciliationthe work received its premiere late in 1917. Similarly The Ballad of Blank, dating from a couple of years later, adapts traditional folk material into an orchestral miniature epic depicting the transformation of swords into ploughshares amid a scene of unabashed pastoral tranquillity. Janceks two Excursion of Mr Broucek operasthe excursions in question being to the moon and to the fifteenth centuryconcern themselves with traditional tales of medievalist escapism. Dedicated to the liberator of the Czech nation (Tom Masaryk, the countrys president in the years following its separation from the Austro-Hungarian empire), this is music of an irrepressible vivacity and optimism; the suite recorded here (prepared after the composers death) draws together the considerable quantity of purely orchestral music from the operasincluding some of Janceks original drafts. The broad sweep of these orchestral works is given full flight in luxurious performances from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Ilan Volkov. Czechoslovakias independence was to be short-lived, but Janceks aspirational music can stand today as a symbol of what might have been.

Reviews

2010

Fans of the Glagolitic Mass should definitely make a beeline for Janácek's 1913 cantata The EternalGospel. Radiating a comparable spiritual and theatrical fervour, it's a setting of a text by Jaroslav Vrchlický inspired by the commentary on the Book of Revelation by the 12th-century mystic Joachim of Fiore, that serves up a seductive brew of rapt lyricism and tingling drama. Much of the solo vocal writing possesses a truly operatic scope and there are some memorably ardent choral interjections. The gifted young Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov masterminds a laudably disciplined and full-throated account of this bracing rarity, and the sound has commendable spread and amplitude (especially in its SACD format).
The rest of the programme is no less enticing.
The Fiddler's Child (1913) and The Ballad of Blaník (1919) are compact and often bewitchingly lovely tone-poems with patriotic leanings; and the disc concludes with an orchestral suite from the satirical two-part opera The Excursions of Mr Broucek (1908-17). A thoroughly diverting 21-minute sequence it makes, too: just try the fairground sway of the 'Moon Waltz' or the young lovers' ineffably tender tryst ('Before Dawn') that brings the curtain down on the first half. If it's festive spectacle you're after, the last two movements ('Song of the Hussites' and 'Procession of the Victors') have it by the spadeful.
Performance-wise, there are no real grumbles.
Although the music-making has not quite the irresistible tang you get from native interpreters in this repertoire, Volkov (not yet 30 and with talent to spare) directs with considerable flair and sensitivity. If their string section inevitably can't match up to, say, the Czech PO's for sheer heft or tonal lustre, the BBC Scottish SO play with admirable precision and infectious enthusiasm; leader Elizabeth Layton is a warm-hearted, songful presence in The Fiddler's Child. Hyperion's glowing natural sound-frame sets the seal on a first-rate anthology.

Leos Janácek - Orchestral Works

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