Leoš Janáček was an authority on his native folk-music, and the Lachian and Moravian Dances preserve and celebrate culture and traditions which were vanishing even in his own lifetime. Based on Gogol’s historical novel, Janáček’s inspired orchestral rhapsody on Taras Bulba depicts three moving and dramatic episodes in the violent life of the Cossack leader, climaxing in his stirring and triumphant prophecy of liberation. This release follows Antoni Wit’s acclaimed Warsaw recording of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass and Sinfonietta (8.572639). Antoni Wit, one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors, studied conducting with Henryk Czyz and composition with Krzysztof Penderecki at the Academy of Music in Kraków, subsequently continuing his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 2002 he became managing and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

REVIEWS:

Everything about this disc is fabulous: the performances, the coupling, and the sonics. Antoni Wit’s Taras Bulba sounds like no other. It’s full of details that you won’t have heard before, particularly in the layering of textures and shades of woodwind color. This is particularly obvious in the second movement, “The Death of Ostap”, but these personal touches never get in the way of an idiomatic, indeed visceral response to the music’s high drama. Wit builds the tension in the first movement’s successive episodes as well as anyone ever has, and releases it in a truly menacing battle sequence, with vicious contributions from the low brass. In the finale the Naxos engineers balance the organ and orchestra uncannily in the concluding apotheosis, which Wit conducts with a wholly individual combination of grandeur and serenity. It’s just plain wonderful.

Wit’s first Janácek disc contained the Glagolitic Mass and the Sinfonietta, and finding appropriate couplings for the composer’s scant orchestral output is never easy. There are the two other symphonic poems (The Ballad of Blaník and The Fiddler’s Child), some assorted overtures, the Schluck und Jau incidental music, the early works for string orchestra, and very little else. Wit’s choice of the two dance suites turns out to be an inspired decision, since they offer music that marries very well with Taras Bulba. The Lachian Dances are somewhat well known from recordings, though still a rarity in concert, but the Moravian Dances of 1891, a five-movement suite lasting about nine minutes, remains the preserve of Janácek specialists. They are delightful, and I offer a sample of No. 2 (“Kalamajka”). For the record, Wit omits the optional organ part in the Lachian Dances (the score refers to it as “inobligato”), a smart idea as the orchestration is already somewhat thick. Strongest recommendation.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The Italian-born pianist and Leeds competition winner Alessio Bax returns with his third solo recital disc for Signum. His programme surveys a selection of highlights from Brahms' pianistic output, charting his development from the early lyrical collection '4 Ballades' (1854) through to the 'eight perfect gems' that are the 8 Klavierstücke Op.76 (1871-78). Bax also tackles Brahms' fiendish set of 'Variations on a Theme of Pagainini, Op.35', which Bax describes in the programme notes as one of 'the most fearsome works ever written for piano'.