Award-winning director Claus Guth’s acclaimed production of Jenůfa is a striking representation of an oppressed society ‘infused with heart-warming humanity’ (Evening Standard). Two courageous women struggle for fulfillment against the backdrop of a claustrophobic rural community. With music inspired by the traditional folk melodies of his native Moravia, Janáček’s score movingly captures Jenůfa’s progression from hope to despair to eventual radiant happiness, while her stepmother, the Kostelnicka, is one of opera’s most complex maternal figures. Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási conducts Asmik Grigorian in her much-anticipated Royal Opera House debut in the title role, alongside Karita Mattila as the Kostelnicka and a star cast.

REVIEW:

The first wave of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s great operas centered on tragic heroines: together with Káťa Kabanová and The Makropulos Case, which followed it, Jenůfa is a triumphant and insightful music drama, as Oliver Mears’ 2021 staging at London’s Royal Opera House shows. Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian plays the demanding title role sensitively and intelligently, the great Finnish soprano Karita Matilla is just as powerful as Kostelnicka, her stepmother, and conductor Henrik Nánási leads the orchestra and chorus in a gripping account of Janáček’s intense score. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

-- The Flip Side (Kevin Filpski)

Janáček’s opera Káta Kabanová is set in a small Russian town and is based on the play The Storm by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The story revolves around the central character, Káťa – sung by “the phenomenal Corinne Winters” (Neue Musikzeitung) – who is trapped in a loveless marriage to an abusive man named Boris. Despite her unhappiness, she is bound by the strict societal norms of her time and is unable to escape the situation. However, when she meets and falls in love with a young man named Vána Kudrjáš, she finally experiences happiness and passion. But their relationship is short-lived, as Boris finds out and forces Káta to confess her infidelity in front of the entire town.

Overwhelmed by the shame and guilt, she drowns herself in the nearby river. The opera explores themes of social conformity, oppression, and the consequences of forbidden love. Janáček’s use of musical leitmotifs and repetitive themes reflect the characters’ emotions and psychological states, adding depth and nuance to the story. Stage director Barrie Kosky managed to create an intimate but impressive setting in the magnificent Felsenreitschule. “Jittery and balletic, ecstatic and anxious, Winters has a child’s volatile presence, and her livewire voice conveys Kát'a’s wonder and vulnerability.” (The New York Times) “Corinne Winters is “Kát'a Kabanova”: a great, luminous longing from head to toe. With director Barrie Kosky and conductor Jakub Hruša, she makes the opera in Salzburg a triumph.” (Der Tagesspiegel)

Leif Ove Andsnes is a leading pianist of his time, known for his exceptional musicianship and subtil touch, his considerable technical flair being unfailingly put at the service of his interpretations. He was a pioneer for being the first home-trained superstar pianist to have emerged from Norway. This box is the story of a 20-year partnership that has yielded a rich seam of recorded treasures, first for Virgin and then for EMI. Running through this cornucopia of 34 albums (36 CDs), we find recurring themes: Grieg (Andsnes even recorded some Lyric Pieces on the composer's own piano at Troldhaugen), Nordic music in general, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schubert.

Sir András Schiff (born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who has received numerous major awards and honors, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize, and was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honors for services to music. He is one of the most appreciated and distinguished pianists in the world. Magically, he brings life into pieces, makes them breathing and swinging and keeps up almost forgotten ideals of piano playing. He is not only a great pianist, but also a professional whose view is not limited on piano music, but who has wide knowledge of the broad field of macro culture. This enables him to play the piano which always makes sense to his own point of view. This extensive concert recordings for fans and collectors includes Schiff's Interpretation of Bartok's Piano Concertos, Schubert's Piano Trios and Bach's Goldberg Variations among others. András Schiff is particularly appreciated for his Janáček and Schubert interpretations, which are included in this collection. The edition makes rare classical archive footage from the years 1989-2008 available on Blu-ray Disc.

This album features some of the most beloved works from the piano repertoire, all united by a common theme of distant reminiscences of lost happiness-either directly expressed in the titles of the pieces or subtly woven into the music, as in Schubert's Sonata in A Major, written just months before his death. It is both a tribute to Beethoven's style and a quintessential example of Schubert's unique blend of intimate emotions, expressed through lyrical motifs. While the virtuosic pianism is never absent, it takes a back seat to the emotional depth and expressiveness at the heart of the work. The cycles of Leos Janacek were composed during the darkest period of his life. His On an Overgrown Path memorializes his daughter, who tragically passed away, while In the Mists with it's transparent texture and innovative harmonies captures the internal void and confusion of the composer. Schumann's Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) evokes the perspective of an adult looking back with nostalgia, longing for the simplicity and innocence of childhood. The music, with it's straightforward and sometimes naive language, mirrors the idealized view of the past. Min Jung Lee, a versatile and sensitive artist, delivers a deeply evocative interpretation. In her delicate readings, she perfectly captures the essence of these compositions, painting a misty portrait of the personal experiences of the composers, transposed into musical form on the staff.

Jeji pastorkyna (Her Stepdaughter; commonly known as Jenufa) is an opera in three acts by Leos Janacek to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Jeji pastorkyna by Gabriela Preissova. Jenufa is based on a play by the Czech writer Gabriela Preissova�. Set a Moravian village, it follows the travails of two half-brothers, steva and Laca, and the woman with whom they are both in love, Jenufa. Jenufa loves steva in return, and is secretly pregnant with his child. But, after the jealous Laca slashes her face, steva abandons her, repelled by the disfigurement. Things only get worse for Jenufa in the second act. Laca, who now hopes to marry her instead, finds out about the child and is furious. In a desperate attempt to help, Jenufa's stepmother kills the baby - but tells them both it died naturally. Her plan appears to work and the pair agree to marry, but the child's body is discovered, forcing Jenufa's stepmother to confess. The opera ends with a remarkable reconciliatory duet between Laca and Jenufa. Here Janacek's music gleams, luminous and hopeful after such sustained darkness.

For every cellist; Poulenc's Cello Sonata is demanding in terms of playing technique. Since he had a great affinity for woodwind instruments; his notation is not really written to suit the conditions of a string instrument. He himself was aware of this fact; so he sought expert advice for the composition from the famous cellist Pierre Fournier; who was also the dedicatee and soloist at the premiere in 1948. "Everything we see; hear and feel is connected with feeling." This is how Leoš Janácek defined his artistic attitude; from which grew an idiosyncratic tonal language hardly comparable with other models or traditions of his time. Pohádka means - translated from Czech - "fairy tale". It is based on a fairy tale by the Russian romanticist Wassilij Shukowskj (1783-1852) about the love of a prince for a princess. Janácek's enthusiasm for Russian culture is evident in this choice of theme. Sergei Rachmaninoff was in the limelight as a generous piano virtuoso; but as a composer he was more of a pensive self-doubter. His first symphony had failed with the public. This experience of failure led him into a depression and creative crisis lasting several years. Three years later; he was released from it through a new type of hypnotherapy; which was tantamount to an artistic rebirth. His second piano concerto arose like a phoenix from the ashes and was enthusiastically celebrated. Shortly thereafter; he created his Sonata for Piano and Violoncello opus 19; which is now considered one of his most brilliant compositions. Thematically and motivically; the four movements lead from darkness into light. It was dedicated to the cellist Anatoly Bradukov.

As 1st prize winner of the 2022 ARD Music Competition, the Barbican Quartet is one of the most sought-after young string quartet formations. The internationally composed ensemble is now releasing it's debut album on GENUIN: "Manifesto on Love", with works by Leos Janacek and Robert Schumann. The contrast between Schumann's expansive musical lines and Janacek's nervous surfaces and ecstatic outbursts could not be greater - yet the Barbican Quartet unites them as expressions of human need for love, for togetherness. Two works of the most intimate musical genre played at a phenomenal level!

Cellist Jir?i� Ba�rta and pianist Terezie Fialova� dedicate their new album to the legacy of Leos? Jana�c?ek. The album features three pieces written originally for violin and piano: the well-known Sonata that had been, nonetheless, neglected at the time of it's origin, Dumka, and Romance. The violin parts of the three compositions have been arranged for the cello by Jir?i� Ba�rta and are released in a world premiere in this form. Jana�c?ek composed Dumka and Romance during his studies in Leipzig, an unhappy period when he tortured himself with doubts about his talent. They both show traces of classicist and romantic style and Barta �s cello recording even more pronounces the wistfully elegiac disposition of the piece. Cello adaptation of the Sonata is based on Janacek �s version from 1922, retaining the key and the having piano part unaltered, while the violin part has mostly been transposed an octave lower. The album also also includes the only two compositions by Jana�c?ek intended for cello and piano, Poha�dka (Fairy Tale), with a fourth movement that had been part of one of the working versions of the work but discarded later by Jana�c?ek, and the short Presto, originally probably intended as one the movements for Poha�dka - which also went through diverse stages of germination just as Sonata did, and it's last version was published in 1924. Inspiration by the tragic story of the Tale of Tsar Berendey and his child reflects Jana�c?ek �s own experience. "Like most of Jana�c?ek's chamber works, Poha�dka provides a fascinating insight into the composer's soul," says Jir?i� Ba�rta and describes his memories of his first encounter of Janacek �s music: "I'm listening to the strangely beautiful music, so different from anything I'd have encountered as a child. Harrowing, yet tender, sad, but in a different way, moving, yet devoid of whining and false tears. (...)In his almost despondent genuineness, he will not forgive any mannerism or insincerity, making it hard for the performer to decipher him. Even at moments of greatest anguish, he is faithful to the principles of beauty and truth." The catalogue of Animal Music features as well a recording of the two artists' performance of Beethoven's Sonatas for piano and cello (2021), and Jir?i� Ba�rta's solo recording of complete Bach's cello suites (2018).

Cellist Jiri Barta and pianist Terezie Fialova dedicate their new album to the legacy of Leos Janacek. The album features three pieces written originally for violin and piano: the well-known Sonata that had been, nonetheless, neglected at the time of it's origin, Dumka, and Romance. The violin parts of the three compositions have been arranged for the cello by Jiri Barta and are released in a world premiere in this form. Janacek composed Dumka and Romance during his studies in Leipzig, an unhappy period when he tortured himself with doubts about his talent. They both show traces of classicist and romantic style and Barta �s cello recording even more pronounces the wistfully elegiac disposition of the piece. Cello adaptation of the Sonata is based on Janacek �s version from 1922, retaining the key and the having piano part unaltered, while the violin part has mostly been transposed an octave lower. The album also also includes the only two compositions by Janacek intended for cello and piano, Pohadka (Fairy Tale), with a fourth movement that had been part of one of the working versions of the work but discarded later by Janacek, and the short Presto, originally probably intended as one the movements for Pohadka - which also went through diverse stages of germination just as Sonata did, and it's last version was published in 1924. Inspiration by the tragic story of the Tale of Tsar Berendey and his child reflects Janacek �s own experience. "Like most of Janacek's chamber works, Pohadka provides a fascinating insight into the composer's soul," says Jiri Barta and describes his memories of his first encounter of Janacek �s music: "I'm listening to the strangely beautiful music, so different from anything I'd have encountered as a child. Harrowing, yet tender, sad, but in a different way, moving, yet devoid of whining and false tears. (...)In his almost despondent genuineness, he will not forgive any mannerism or insincerity, making it hard for the performer to decipher him. Even at moments of greatest anguish, he is faithful to the principles of beauty and truth." The catalogue of Animal Music features as well a recording of the two artists' performance of Beethoven's Sonatas for piano and cello (2021), and Jiri Barta's solo recording of complete Bach's cello suites (2018).

It took Frank Martin a long time to heed his deep-seated inner calling to write a Requiem: 'What I have tried to express here is the clear will to accept death; to make peace with it.' The Requiem was composed in 1971/72, Martin utilizes the whole bandwidth of orchestral sound and explores all opportunities for interplay among the vocalists, as well. Leoš Janácek’s setting of the Otcenáš, the Lord’s Prayer, is not a conventionally religious work. The Czech composer was more interested in its social aspects than any theological musings. Conductor Leif Segerstam, Chief conductor of ORF Vienna radio Symphony Orchestra from 1975-1983 loved to surprise his public with non-mainstream repertoire. Two of these live recordings are now restored, re-mastered and first time published for the future.

REVIEW:

Frank Martin’s operatic background is to the fore in his setting of the Requiem. Written towards the very end of his life he had apparently delayed setting the text and once completed declared that his work was now done. Some decidedly 20th Century techniques, such as semi-spoken passages, can be heard in this music which is full of drama and displays a real affinity with the text. Janacek’s settting of the Lord’s Prayer is apparently written from a more detached view, with the composer apparently less committed to the meaning of the text in itself. However, this is still moving music, making for a fine pairing of lesser known liturgically inspired 20th Century (the Janacek only just!) works.

-- Lark Reviews

An original selection of Leoš Janácek’s works released on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the composer’s death.

In connection with the previous compilation, The Many Loves of Antonín Dvořák, which met with favorable response from reviewers in the USA and in the UK, we asked the BBC3 long-time music producer and one of the great experts in and lovers of Czech music and its recordings, Patrick Lambert, to compile a similar series dedicated to the Moravian master.

Its name alone – Many Passions – reflects Janáček’s temperament and the selection is a result of thorough research into his personality. The composer approached all life’s changes with a wide range of emotions. Therefore, eight categories were created and got the same names as Janáček’s passions: the Folk Tradition; the Czech Case – Politics and Patriotism; Family; Life and Nature; Friendship with Dvorák; Women; Russian Literature; Religious Roots.

The set contains famous pieces, such as Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, Glagolitic Mass, Jenufa and The Cunning Little Vixen, as well as many discoveries that put Janáček’s work into context, e.g. his choruses Seventy-thousand and The Czech Legion, the Danube Symphony, Prelude in G minor for organ and a fragment of his Mass in E flat major. The selection of performers includes the classics of Janáček interpretation from Brno and Prague and some unique archival recordings as well as many new ones.

Among the conductors are Bretislav Bakala, František Jílek, Jaroslav Vogel, Václav Neumann, Karel Ancerl, Bohumil Gregor, Sir Charles Mackerras and Jakub Hruša, and other performers include important Bohemian and Moravian choirs, soloists Theodor Šrubar, Beno Blachut, Libuše Domanínská and Gabriela Benacková, and instrumentalists Josef Suk, Ilja Hurník, Jan Panenka, the Janáček Quartet and the Pavel Haas Quartet. The choice of compositions deeply reflects Janáček’s greatly varied music, paying homage to the most remarkable 20th-century Czech composer on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of his death and celebrating the unique richness of Supraphon’s archives.

Paths – crossing and diverging, those we choose ourselves and those that are predestined and inevitable: through this prism the violinist Josef Špacek and the cellist Tomáš Jamník view the music of four Czech composers written within a mere 35 years of the 20th century. Janácek, enraptured by the idea of Pan-Slavism, was led by desire to Russia, a country where he found inspiration for his string quartet (here in an ambitious arrangement for two instruments), in a novella by Tolstoy. Ervín Schulhoff, an admirer and friend of Janácek’s (to whom he dedicated the duo featured on the present album), invested his hopes in Soviet Russia, yet this did not save him from death in a Nazi concentration camp. A similar fate (incarceration in Theresienstadt and Fürstengrube) befell Gideon Klein, another gifted and promising composer, who was murdered by the Nazis at the age of 25. Just two incomplete movements of his remarkable Duo for Violin and Cello have survived. The paths pursued by Bohuslav Martinu – first driven by thirst for knowledge and then forced to flee the Nazis – led from Prague through Paris to the USA, before returning to Europe; yet circumstances did not allow him to see his beloved country again. Martinu wrote his Duo for Violin and Cello No. 2 towards the very end of his life – and it also concludes the album by two brilliant artists. A virtuoso, profound and forcible recording indeed. Virtuosity, vivid joy and deep sorrow – the stories of four composers as reflected in their music.

In November 2025, SOMM pays special tribute to the centenary of Sir Charles Mackerras (1925 - 2010) who was, amongst other stellar achievements, an outstanding interpreter of the music of Czech composer Leos Janacek�(1854 - 1928). At the age of 25, and over the next six decades, Mackerras introduced generations of London opera-goers to Janacek's extraordinary masterpieces, and he was directly responsible for these works becoming established in the British operatic repertoire. Our centenary tribute features the release of a remastered broadcast, from 1964, of Mackerras's first London production of the opera The Makropulos Affair. Also included is Janacek's quasi-operatic�song cycle, The Diary of One who Disappeared. Audio restoration is by Lani Spahr, whose previous restorations for SOMM of works by Elgar, Bruckner, Holst, and Bliss have recently received no less than three Gramophone Editor's Choices. Shortly after Mackerras arrived in the UK from Australia in 1947, a�British Council�Scholarship enabled him to study conducting with�Vaclav Talich�at the Prague Academy of Music, during which time he discovered Czech music and Janacek in particular. His breakthrough in introducing Janacek's unfamiliar music to British audiences came in February 1964, when he conducted The Makropulos Affair at Sadler's Wells. This release is an exciting, highly-charged souvenir of that first London production. The title of the opera, inspired by Karel Capek's 1922 play, refers to a century-old probate case, which holds the key to the formula for a life-extending elixir. The coolly enigmatic opera diva Emilia Marty shows great interest in the case, and is revealed to be Elina Makropulos, a woman from�Crete, who has lived for 337 years. This recording features the Australian dramatic soprano Marie Collier, an outstanding exponent of the role. The vocal writing in the opera is predominantly conversational, underpinned by an orchestral score that is both uncompromisingly modern and evocative of ancient times. The lead characters in two of Janacek's operas Kata in�Katya Kabanova�and Emilia Marty in�The Makropulos Affair were inspired by Kamila Stosslova with whom he fell deeply in love, despite their both being married and he being almost forty years her senior. The earliest work to be inspired by Kamila was�The Diary of One who Disappeared, begun the month after Janacek met her in 1917. This unorthodox song cycle for tenor, contralto, female voices, and piano was inspired by a diary-in-poems about a village boy who falls in love with the gipsy girl �ofka. Janacek wrote to Kamila, "All through the work I thought of you! You were my �ofka." This 1956 recording features Bernard Keeffe's English translation with Richard Lewis, tenor, Maureen Forrester, contralto, women from the BBC Singers, and pianist Ernest Lush.

For her second album with Cypres, Laurence Mekhitarian has devised a programme combining the music of Robert Schumann with that of Gyorgy Kurtag, as it seemed obvious to her that their worlds share a profound emotional kinship. Certain works by Kurtag, such as the Trio Hommage a R. Sch. And Quasi una fantasia, bear direct witness to this. Alongside Schumann's Waldszenen, Laurence Mekhitarian has chosen to include three excerpts from Leos Janacek's cycle Sur un sentier recouvert and to play each of these pieces alternately with miniatures by Kurtag from his ten collections of Jatekok. The pianist has followed a free path here, guided by echoes, resonances, contrasts and sonic affinities. Kurtag has been part of her musical life for nearly forty years, both as a performer and a teacher. His high standards, his depth and his humanity have had a profound impact on her. In her view, he embodies a rare and essential way of being in the world through art. This programme has been constructed with curiosity and wonder, allowing the works to dialogue with each other. Kurtag's pieces - Fleurs, Objet trouve, Jeu avec l'infini - open up a sound space beyond the keyboard. They lead us to the Waldszenen, like a door to a world waiting to be explored. Each of Kurtag's miniatures is a tribute, a memory, a message. The journey ends with a transcription of a Largo by Johann Sebastian Bach, followed by a piece by Artur Avanesov (Modulatio, as a hidden track...).

Karel Ancerl was one of the most tragic Conductors of the Twentieth century: he survived the Extermination Camps, in which he lost his wife and children. After the war, with Vaclav Talich, he was certainly the greatest Bohemian Conductor. Known above all for his recordings of Smetana and Dvorak, he stood out for his interpretations (early 1960s) of the great European repertoire of the 19th century. This double CD testifies to his approach to three very different, and significant, composers such as Mahler, Sibelius and Janacek. High quality Studio recordings.

Tae-Hyung Kim's Echoes in the Mists is a poetic journey through a century of piano music, tracing a line from early Romanticism to early modernism. The album opens with Franz Liszt's masterful transcriptions of Schubert's Lieder-works that preserve the songs' lyrical intimacy while expanding their expressive possibilities on the piano. These include Fruhlingsglaube, Standchen von Shakespeare, and excerpts from Die schone Mullerin, where Liszt illuminates Schubert's emotional worlds with subtle pianistic colour and occasional virtuosic flourish. At the heart of the programme lies Robert Schumann's Waldszenen, a deeply introspective cycle in which nine miniature scenes form an imaginative, poetic walk through an inner forest-alternating between joy, mystery, tenderness, and melancholy. Through this selection, Kim highlights the richly interconnected sound worlds of Schubert, Schumann, and Liszt, revealing both continuity and evolution within the Romantic tradition. The album's second half turns toward a different aesthetic with Leos Janacek's V mlhach (In the Mists), written in 1912, a work shaped by personal grief and the composer's late-style search for distilled expression. It's four movements form a single, mist-shrouded psychological landscape, where fragmentary motives, speech-like rhythms, and shifting tonal colours create a fragile, introspective atmosphere. While faint traces of Debussy's influence may be heard-particularly in the luminous openings and closings-the music remains unmistakably Janacek's in it's tension, fatalism, and emotional immediacy. By juxtaposing these radically different composers, Kim creates an album that reflects the transformation of piano writing from Romantic lyricism to early modern expression, inviting listeners to hear how echoes of the past resonate through changing musical languages.

Two life-affirming works from Leoš Janáček's prodigious final years are performed by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg under Marko Letonja, it's Music Director from 2012 to 2021: the Glagolitic Mass, both monumental and exuberant, and the colourful, multi-faceted Sinfonietta. The vocal soloists are Malin Byström, Jennifer Johnston, Ladislav Elgr, and Adam Plachetka, who are joined by organist Johann Vexo and the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno - the city where Janáček made his home and which he evokes in the Sinfonietta. This recording uses a 2011 critical edition of the Glagolitic Mass which captures the true adventure and passion of Janáček's score.

Intense, passionate, and impeccable in its musical disciplines, the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet "consistently finds a balance between projecting musical structure and conveying immediacy." Confirming that verdict from the New York Times is this 23CD collection, encompassing all the recordings the ensemble made between 1996 and 2018.

The Artemis Quartet began life in 1989 and developed a particular reputation in the central Austro-German repertoire. If Beethoven justly asserts a powerful presence, the scope of this collection extends as far as Eastern Europe and South America and well into the 20th century. Over the period of nearly a quarter of a century documented in this box, there were changes in the Artemis Quartet's lineup, but as founding cellist Eckart Runge explains, this "brought new inspiration - an opportunity to broaden horizons and introduce fresh ideas."

The ensemble suffered a tragic loss with the untimely death of violist Friedemann Weigle in 2015. Just days earlier, the Artemis had completed a recording of Dvořák's lyrical and poignant 'American' Quartet; it is now released for the very first time. This landmark box is completed by a comprehensive booklet which includes reminiscences from members of the Artemis Quartet and from sound engineers who collaborated with them.

Charles Mackerras has shown himself one of the finest Jan�cek conductors. His readings convey a sense of burning belief in and love of Jan�cek's music; they are well prepared; yet it is as if the strangeness and beauty of the music were being revealed for the first time. The engineers have excelled themselves, matching this bold approach with an equally bold recording... In the four Preludes the performances are excellently dramatic, and most moving. (Gramophone)