When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and since the mid 1980s the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “ORFEO 40th Anniversary” 2-album sampler well reflects these two sides of the label by combining highlight tracks of historical recordings with today’s global stars.

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.