Leoš JANÁČEK (1854-1928)
Orchestral Works - Volume 2
Jealousy, JW VI/20 (1895) [5:30]
Violin Concerto ‘The Wandering of a Little Soul’, JW IX/10 (1926? Incomplete) (Completed by Leoš Faltis and Miloš Štĕdroň (1988) [12:05]
The Ballad of Blanik, JW VI/16 (1919) [7:43]
The Fiddler’s Child, JW VI/14 (1913) [12:48]
The Danube, JW IX/7 (1923-25) Unfinished symphony. Completed by Miloš Štĕdroň and Leoš Faltis (1985) [16:10]
Taras Bulba, JW VI/15 (1915-18 [22:51]
Susanna Anderson (soprano); James Ehnes (violin); Melina Mandozzi (violin)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner
rec. 2014, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway. DSD
CHANDOS CHSA5156 SACD [77:48]
Late last year I reviewed
the first volume in Edward Gardner’s new Janáček series
from Bergen. It’s good to find Volume 2 following so quickly.
This survey includes a couple of scores that Janáček failed to
complete. In his highly informative notes the renowned Janáček
expert, John Tyrrell guides us through the history of these pieces and,
in headline terms, the issues arising from the fact that the composer
left them as incomplete scores.
Jealousy does not fall into the category of incomplete scores;
instead it’s something of a discard. It was originally intended
as the prelude to the opera Jenůfa but John Tyrrell believes
it was abandoned during the rehearsals for the first performance of
the opera. The music was not included in the first publication of a
piano-vocal score and it appeared in no performance of the opera during
Janáček’s lifetime. As befits music that was intended as
an operatic prelude it’s a dramatic piece and it gets an arresting
and vivid performance from Gardner and his Bergen forces. The excellence
of their performance is accentuated by the superb SACD sound - the biting
brass and the timpani sound especially impressive. I got out the 2002
performance by the Czech Philharmonic and Sir Charles Mackerras (SU
1684-2 11). The Supraphon sound is pretty good – perhaps a bit
mellower than the very vivid Chandos recording – and Mackerras
leads an excellent performance. However, I didn’t feel that Gardner’s
account suffers at all by comparison.
Gardner also offers The Ballad of Blanik, which John Tyrrell
says was probably written in 1919 to celebrate the foundation of the
Czechoslovakian Republic. The piece is dedicated to Tomáš Masaryk,
the President of the new nation and Tyrrell speculates that the piece
is more about Masaryk, whom the composer admired, rather than the old
legend on which other composers, such as Smetana, had previously based
works. In any case, given the amount of detail concerning the legend
which Tyrrell describes in his note it seems to me that Janáček
would have been hard pressed to illustrate much of the story in a score
that plays for less than eight minutes. It’s a colourful score,
ardent and positive in spirit. It’s played with splendid conviction
here.
The Fiddler’s Child is in three sections, each of which
is separately tracked here. There are important solo roles for several
instruments – and apparently Janáček was very explicit as
to which instruments represented which element of the story. Given the
title of the work and the story which it illustrates it’s not
surprising the leader of the orchestra is primus inter pares.
Melina Mandozzi, the leader of the Bergen Philharmonic, is characterful
and incisive in representing the Old Fiddler whose demise and ghostly
reappearance form the basis of the story. The central section depicts
the Fiddler’s ghost returning from the dead to tempt his dying
child to come with him. Here the music is spectral and Gardner establishes
excellent tension in these pages. Overall this is a dramatic and involving
performance.
One of the two reconstructed scores is the unfinished symphony, The
Danube. John Tyrrell discusses the genesis and eventual abandonment
of this score in some detail. It seems likely that the composer rather
ran out of steam and realised that this project was not firing his creative
imagination in the same way as other scores that he worked on around
this time, notably the Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass.
It appears that the editors, Miloš Štĕdroň and Leoš
Faltis didn’t seek to impose their own views on the four movements
that Janáček drafted. As John Tyrrell puts it their reconstruction
is “more modest [than the efforts of previous editors] in its
ambitions, confining itself to presenting an accurate picture of what
Janáček left and deciphering the often ambiguous notation.”
The results are, perhaps inevitably, somewhat fragmentary though the
music has the authentic Janáček sound. Quite what the composer
would have made of the score had he lived to complete it – or
had the urge so to do – we shall never know but, as Tyrrell says,
what there is contains much interest. The editors seem to have done
a wholly convincing job. Janáček’s inventive orchestration
is highly original and never less than fascinating – the use of
timpani in the second movement is exceptionally striking, for instance.
In the third movement Janáček includes a wordless soprano solo,
here expertly taken by Susanna Anderson. This, Tyrrell suggests, is
a ‘voice of nature’ role. Her music is lively and extrovert
and the impact is heightened by the use of a viola d’amore to
partner the singer. There’s an outdoor feeling to much of this
score, especially the fourth movement and whilst regretting the frustrations
associated with its incomplete status I’d rather have the piece
in this form than not at all.
The same pair of editors is responsible for completing the Violin Concerto
though John Tyrrell says that in realising Janáček’s sketches
Štĕdroň and Faltis “were on more dubious ground.”
The music seems to have originated as a draft overture to From the
House of the Dead but though Janáček made two continuous drafts
of the piece he eventually laid it aside. The score is in one movement
which plays without a break but which contains no less than ten tempo
changes. I have to say that it seems to me to be a rather disjointed
piece though it is intriguing. The music is sometimes acerbic and often
attractive. James Ehnes is a nimble and assertive soloist while Gardner
ensures that the highly original orchestral parts are tellingly realised.
The programme concludes with one of Janáček’s best and best-known
orchestral works: Taras Bulba. John Tyrrell rightly points
out that the music is often cinematic in its orchestration and in its
depiction of events. It’s a busy score with lots going on, especially
in the third movement, ‘The Prophecy and Death of Taras Bulba’.
Thanks to the excellence of the razor-sharp playing and the splendidly
rich and detailed Chandos recording all of this registers. It’s
a vivid and sometimes graphic score – especially graphic in portraying
the death of Ostap at the end of the second movement: Gardner and his
players really bring the music to life. A compelling and exciting performance
is capped in the last four minutes or so of the work. Here Gardner invests
the music with nobility and grandeur. In the closing bars the organ
is thrillingly sonorous. The Supraphon set that I’ve already mentioned
includes a live 2000 performance by Mackerras and the Czech Philharmonic.
The orchestra is on blistering form, playing with genuine fervour, and
Mackerras leads a superb performance. Yet Gardner’s reading is
by no means put in the shade and, excellent though the Supraphon sound
is, the Chandos engineering definitely has the edge. Janáček enthusiasts
will need no prompting from me to remember also the classic Ančerl
account from 1963 (review).
This great Czech conductor’s performance has a special authority
and the Czech Philharmonic of the early 1960s still retained that unique
Eastern European timbre. However, despite the great intensity of Ančerl’s
reading the Supraphon recording is now showing its age and his CD is
an essential supplement to modern versions such as either the Mackerras
or the Gardner.
At the end of my review of the previous instalment in this series I
suggested that this Gardner survey of Janáček’s orchestral
music could be rewarding to follow. This very fine release more than
confirms that judgement. The performances are uniformly excellent, the
notes are ideal and the sound is magnificent, even by the usual high
Chandos standards. All in all this is a compelling package for Janáček
enthusiasts and Volume 3 is eagerly
awaited.
John
Quinn
Previous reviews: Dave
Billinge (SACD) ; Dan
Morgan (24/96 download)
