Also available: Life with Czech Music - Dvorák, Smetana / Sir Charles Mackerras

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Contains 4 CDs + 1 DVD.

Reviews:

The Cunning Little Vixen, Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba

Charles Mackerras speaks of this set as his last series of Janácek recordings, which is understandable--but let's fervently hope that he hangs around to make many more discs for Supraphon (and other labels). Some of this material has appeared previously in the opera sets: the overtures and interludes to Kát'a Kabanová and Sárka. The rest of the items are new and wonderful. Most interesting for Janácek collectors may be this superb Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen that follows the outline of Talich's arrangement (that is, Act 1 minus the voices) but restores the composer's original orchestration. It's wonderful. Equally wonderful is the performance of Schluck und Jau, certainly its finest on disc, and the same holds true of the Jealousy Overture (a bit messy in the earlier Decca recording).


This performance of the Sinfonietta is thrilling: swifter than the somewhat staid Decca recordings and even more exciting than Mackerras' famous first effort with the Pro Arte Orchestra (now on Testament). He whips up the excitement at such points as the third movement's central climax with uninhibited abandon, and the Czech Philharmonic responds with explosive enthusiasm. The same qualities characterize the second two movements of Taras Bulba; the first is a touch relaxed, not as violent in the battle scene as some others I could name (Ancerl, for example), but it's never slack or self-consciously smooth. The recordings--both live and studio efforts from a variety of venues--sound consistently excellent. Mackerras did more for Janácek than any other conductor living or dead, and it's fitting that he should leave his final thoughts on this music with the Czech Philharmonic and Supraphon. A set not to be missed! [5/4/2004]

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

DVD - Jealousy, Taras Bulba, Glagolitic Mass
If the idea of watching a Mass on DVD doesn't seem all that inspiring, consider that the work in question is Janácek's powerful Glagolitic Mass. The already enthralling music gains a visceral intensity under Charles Mackerras' masterful and potent conducting. The visual element only heightens the drama, as we see the elegance of the beautifully adorned Dvorák Hall--a fitting setting for this ceremonial music. The cameras also capture the individual performers in their most important passages--Eva Urbanová's impassioned solos, Leo Marian Vodicka's fearsome tenor utterances, as well as Peter Mikuláš' stern bass proclamations. There are well-timed shots of the Prague Philharmonic Choir as well, and of course, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, which plays brilliantly. Organist Jan Hora, who gives a virtuoso performance of this all-important part, unfortunately is out of view (we see instead the pipes of his massive instrument). Mackerras, who uses Janácek's restored original score with its more colorful orchestration and raucous percussion parts, conducts vibrantly, with swift tempos making for a rousing occasion.


The Czech Philharmonic is the star of Jealousy (the original prelude to Jenufa) and Taras Bulba, and again it plays marvelously with virtuoso contributions from all sections. Now the camera pinpoints the many instrumental solos as well as individual orchestral sections in critical passages, indicating the video director's familiarity with the score. Mackerras' interpretations have been documented previously on audio-only recordings, perhaps most sumptuously with the Vienna Philharmonic on Decca. The sound on this video version is not so resplendent (it's not something you'd play with the TV off), but it suits the medium well, and it's quite fascinating to see the greatest living Janácek conductor at work. This is one DVD you'll watch many times. [9/13/2005]

– Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Double Concerto, Les fresques
The Double Concerto and Les fresques are among Martinu's most satisfying works: behind the cosmopolitan, 'conservative-modern' lingua franca of their language both have a genuine individuality of Utterance, and both have an expressive urgency that repeated hearing intensifies. In the case of the Double Concerto the emotional burden is a brooding disquiet and a stoicism that eloquently reflect the time in which the work was written (1938: it was completed on the very day that the Allies agreed to Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland). In Les fresques there is a rapt, at times ecstatic luminosity, a mystic serenity, even, that is a strikingly apt metaphor for Piero's numinous brightness.

Not surprisingly, both pieces have been quite often recorded, but neither of them is at all easy to conduct or to balance. The proliferation of string lines in the Double Concerto can easily sound confused, and there is the problem of where in the sound picture the pianist should be placed: as a soloist, as continuo-player or as provider of edge and attack to the bass-line (the instrument appears in all three roles). The colours of Les fresques are still more easily dulled, shot and hatched as they so often are by solo instruments: the work demands a difficult combination of transparency and richness. Mackerras and his engineers succeed, so it seems to me, quite admirably in both cases. The tension of the Double Concerto's outer movements is finely sustained, there is great weight and intensity to the fuller pages, but enough power is kept in hand (the wide range of the recording plays a part in this) for the conclusion to be formidably powerful, and the excellent pianist seems always to be in the right perspective.

Les fresques are still finer, if anything: the solo lines characterfully expressive, the brighter colours resplendent, but the eloquent purity that is at the music's centre never obscured. [7/1985]

– Gramophone

When Franz xaver Richter became member of the famous Mannheim Orchestra in 1746, he found himself in the very centre of the progressive European music scene where a new era was being born in a proverbial melting pot of various influences. However, Richter never gave up his traditional baroque ''craftsmanship'' and after making himself acquainted with the most successful oratorio libretto by G.C. Pasquini, he set it to music entirely within the boundaries of his characteristic style, combining baroque composition principles with the achievements of the nascent classicist style. For this he used the new 1744 version of the lbiretto intended fo J.A. Hasse. La Deposizione, Richter's only Italian oratorio is a Good Friday pondering of Jesus's disciples over God's unconditional love and Christ's suffering on the cross. For the first time it was performed on the Good Friday of 1748 in the Mannheim court church of The Visitation of Our Lady. After the Strassbourg Requiem, this premiere recording is another gemstone that the Czech Ensemble Baroque have added to the mosaic of Richter's remarkable, still little-researched oeuvre.

Faith in God was for Dvorák the cornerstone on which he built his own life and work, hence it comes as no surprise that a number of his seminal pieces are within the domain of sacred music, and frequently linked with a strong personal story.

The first version of the oratorio Stabat Mater came into being after the death of his first-born daughter. In the wake of the triumph of its London premiere, Dvorák received more commissions from the UK, which gave rise to other paramount compositions: The Spectre's Bride, Requiem and Saint Ludmila.

The instigation for Te Deum came from New York, where following the premiere of the New World Symphony Dvorák wrote the Biblical Songs, the apex of his oeuvre of this genre. The set also contains pieces that have been seldom performed (the cantata The Heirs of the White Mountain, Psalm 149 in the previously unreleased recording made by the conductor Václav Neumann.).

At the same time, this 8-disc collection within the Dvorák series, featuring gems from the Supraphon archive, showcases superlative artists and performances in sensitively re-mastered sound.

This is a set that no one who cares about Dvorák’s symphonies can afford to ignore. These performances really do belong in every serious collection.

Supraphon has finally released Václav Neumann’s 1970s Dvorák symphony cycle, and what a wonderful event it is. These performances are, on the whole, fresher and freer than his digital remakes, fine though those are, and more warmly recorded. The only exception is the somewhat shrill engineering in the First Symphony, but in general the sonics are comparable to other cycles of the period—Kertész, Kubelik, and Rowicki—and this is unquestionably the best played of them all. It’s difficult to overestimate the value of having the Czech Philharmonic in top form in this music, but the sound of the ensemble really does speak for itself. Kubelik’s Berlin Philharmonic might have the best strings, and the London Symphony for Kertész and Rowicki the boldest horns, but the Czech Philharmonic has the best ensemble, top to bottom, at least in Dvorák.

Consider one example: the climax of the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, a work that shows both the orchestra and Neumann at their very best. If you imprinted on this performance, nothing else can match it in power and intensity. The passionate lyricism of the strings, the thrilling low timpani roll that propels the trombones’ upward arpeggio, and those bright, sforzando trumpets combine to make an unforgettable impression (sound clip below), and it’s all exactly as Dvorák wrote it. Interestingly, where Neumann deviates from the printed page, as in the main theme’s fortissimo counterstatement in the first movement, or in the work’s concluding chorale, he gives the doubling parts to the trumpets rather than the horns, as in most other performances, and this too proves the better decision.

This brings us to Neumann’s own contribution. Traditionally he has gotten short shrift compared to the competition. Some of this was politics. In the 1960s and ’70s the British naturally preferred anything featuring the LSO, and Kubelik was a symbol of democratic resistance to Communist rule. He also had the superb Berlin Philharmonic at his disposal, rather than his usual Bavarian Radio forces, and Deutsche Grammophon behind him. Neumann, on LP at least, was spottily available on generally horrible pressings, and he had the disadvantage to be taking over from Ancerl, an indisputably great conductor who wound up on the right side of Cold War politics. Then Neumann remade all the symphonies in digital sound, a set that Supraphon promoted intensely, and this earlier effort simply disappeared from sight.

In general, Neumann’s approach might sound a touch “old fashioned”—quick movements move at moderate speeds, slow movements flow without ever dragging. Although not quite so slow in the allegros, conductors like Otto Klemperer come to mind. And yet, Neumann is by no means lacking in energy. His Eighth Symphony is as fresh (and swift) as any in the catalog. He whips up quite a frenzy in the finale of the Fifth, and this Third Symphony might just be the best on disc. Its first movement is as energetic as can be, the central funeral march is gorgeous and never stiff, while the finale actually sounds less mechanical at this moderate speed than it does when taken more quickly. The Sixth seldom has been paced more naturally, and as Dvorák fans all know, Ancerl’s benchmark performance is a tough act to follow. Neumann has nothing to fear from the comparison, especially in the coda of the finale, which is stunning.

Neumann always did well by the “New World” Symphony, and in only a few spots in the first two symphonies does Neumann sound less than fully engaged (though in the former, he’s still more effective than in his digital remake). The third movement of the Second, particularly, needs to be crisper. Suitner on Berlin Classics is unmatched here. For the most part, though, Neumann’s performances have held up extremely well. In particular, he offers an object lesson in phrasing and, especially, the correct use of legato in lyrical passages. So many performances today, perhaps encouraged by the perpetual staccato of the early music movement, break up Dvorák’s melodies into fragments, whereas Neumann conducts in whole paragraphs.

The couplings add greatly to this set’s attractions. They are uniformly excellent. The Symphonic Variations overflows with character; the three concert overtures belong together (they share a theme, heard at the outset of In Nature’s Realm), and these versions of the four late symphonic poems rank with the best available. They are also very well recorded. So to summarize, this is a set that no one who cares about Dvorák’s symphonies can afford to ignore. Even if you have the versions just mentioned, these performances really do belong in every serious collection.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

MARTIN? The Epic of Gilgamesh • Ji?i B?lohlávek, cond; Marcela Machotková ( A Woman ); Ji?í Zahradni?ek ( Enkidu/Hunter ); Václav Zitek ( Gilgamesh ); Karel Pr?sa ( Narrator/Hunter’s Father/Spirit of Enkidu ); Otakar Brousek ( Speaker ); Prague SO • SUPRAPHON 3918 (59:50 Text and Translation)


Martin?’s major vocal compositions, operas and oratorios, had a way of confounding expectations. The Epic of Gilgamesh , completed in 1955, was in many ways the exact opposite of a work composed around the same time, Mirandolina . While the latter was a typical Goldoni comedy of situation, the former was a work that considered timeless verities of the human condition: the nature of friendship and death. Recitative sufficed for Mirandolina , but Gilgamesh , with its mix of modally based orchestral themes, long-spanned rhythmic ostinatos, and phrases chanted by a bass soloist on a single note, sounds at times like a Martin? transmutation of Eastern Orthodox sacred services. It is a powerful work, deftly drawing upon three sections from the neo-Assyrian redaction of this sprawling and fragmentary religious cycle. From the expansive vision of creation, youth, and energy in the first section, “Gilgamesh,” it turns with restraint to the pathos of “The Death of Enkidu,” then to the alternately forceful and chill ritualistic summons and questioning of Enkidu’s spirit in “Invocation.”


I know of two currently available versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh . Both have been in circulation before. The one that features Zdenek Kosler leading the forces of the Slovak Philharmonic, now on Naxos 8.555138, originally appeared on Marco Polo back in the early 1990s. The one under review is a reissue from 1976. Of the two, Kosler is faster and, I find, a bit less atmospheric than B?lohlávek. There is sometimes a sense of impatience in Kosler’s reading, especially in the “Invocation” movement, as though he found some of the pages less successful than others. I would agree with this, but only if those pages are rushed. Taken in context as B?lohlávek does, the entire oratorio has an overwhelming effect. He is helped by the Prague SO, which is a fresher sounding, better-blended orchestra than the Slovak Philharmonic.


Among the singers, Ji?í Zahradní?ek’s dry, hard-sounding timbre makes him a less attractive Enkidu than Stefan Margita (Kosler). I have a slight preference for Marcela Machotková over Eva Depoltová (Kosler), given the narrow vibrato and refined dynamics of the former. Depoltová sings well, but with less attention to the words. Milan Karpisek (Kosler) offers a more riveting speaker than Otakar Brousek. Elsewhere, the performers are roughly even. Naxos balances its recording well, chorus supporting the orchestra, soloists a bit in front of both. Supraphon’s analog sound is also quite good, with the orchestra richer, and the speaker unfortunately superimposed upon the proceedings in a fashion that recalls voice-overs. Supraphon’s resonance seems to me more appropriate for this piece than that of Naxos, which dulls the musical edge slightly through too large a hall sound.


In short, the choice is yours. Both versions are good, though I’d give the nod to the more thoughtful B?lohlávek.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Over 20,000 discs sold, more than 220 concerts at home and abroad, two extensive tours... + Those are just a few examples of the successes gained by the Gipsy Way project in the wake of the 2008 album Pavel Šporcl recorded with his Gipsy band. + Six years later, in tandem with Supraphon, the violinist held two concerts at Prague’s legendary Domovina Studio, whose fruit is the new CD, Gipsy Fire. + On this new release a succession of technically challenging “Gipsy” repertoire pieces are blended with catchy and melancholic film melodies (Grand blond avec une chaussure noire and Fiddler on the Roof, and a theme Pavel recorded for the Czech movie Divided We Fall) and Piazzolla’s breathtakingly beautiful prayer Ave Maria. + Pavel and the Gipsy Way Ensemble play as if their very lives are in the balance; the audience’s frenzied response indicates that they don’t want the music to ever stop.