Janacek - Glagolitic Mass, Sinfonietta
£15.15
Usually available for despatch within 5-8 working days
Despatch Information
This despatch estimate is based on information from both our own stock and the UK supplier's stock.
If ordering multiple items, we will aim to send everything together so the longest despatch estimate will apply to the complete order.
If you would rather receive certain items more quickly, please place them on a separate order.
If any unexpected delays occur, we will keep you informed of progress via email and not allow other items on the order to be held up.
If you would prefer to receive everything together regardless of any delay, please let us know via email.
Pre-orders will be despatched as close as possible to the release date.
Label: Warner
Cat No: 9029628063
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Release Date: 22nd April 2022
Contents
Artists
Malin Bystrom (soprano)Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano)
Ladislav Elgr (tenor)
Adam Plachetka (baritone)
Johann Vexo (organ)
Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno
Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg
Conductor
Marko LetonjaWorks
Glagolitic Mass, JWIII/9Sinfonietta
Artists
Malin Bystrom (soprano)Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano)
Ladislav Elgr (tenor)
Adam Plachetka (baritone)
Johann Vexo (organ)
Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno
Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg
Conductor
Marko LetonjaAbout
Two life-affirming works from Leoš Janáček’s prodigious final years are performed by the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg under Marko Letonja, its 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 the 2011 critical edition of the Glagolitic Mass which captures the true adventure and passion of Janáček’s score.
Sound/Video
Paused
-
1Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 1. Intráda 1
-
2Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 2. Úvod (Introduction)
-
3Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 3. Gospodi pomiluj (Kyrie)
-
4Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 4. Slava (Gloria)
-
5Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 5. Věruju (Credo)
-
6Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 6. Svet (Sanctus)
-
7Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 7. Agneče Božij (Agnus Dei)
-
8Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 8. Varhany sólo (organ solo)
-
9Mša glagolskaja, JW III/8 (September 1927 version): 9. Intráda 2
-
10Sinfonietta, JW VI/18: 1. Allegretto – Allegro maestoso (Fanfáry / Fanfares)
-
11Sinfonietta, JW VI/18: 2. Andante – Allegretto (Hrad / The Castle)
-
12Sinfonietta, JW VI/18: 3. Moderato (Králové kláster / The Queen’s Monastery)
-
13Sinfonietta, JW VI/18: 4. Allegretto (Ulice / The Street)
-
14Sinfonietta, JW VI/18: 5. Allegro (Radnice / The Town Hall)
Europadisc Review
Of all the great mass and requiem settings in the choral repertoire – from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to Brahms, Verdi and beyond – surely the most blazingly striking and original is Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass. The work is a setting not of the customary Greek/Latin text of Catholic tradition, but of the Old Church Slavonic text, following a suggestion made to the composer by the cleric Leopold Prečan (subsequently Archbishop of Olomouc) in 1921. The term ‘Glagolitic’ is taken from the ancient script originally used for the Old Church Slavonic text, although the words in the score itself are written in the modern Latin alphabet. Musically, the Mass’s deeper roots lie in an incomplete Missa brevis that Janáček drafted in 1907-08.
But the real catalyst for the Glagolitic Mass appears to have been the visit by Archbishop Prečan in July 1926 to unveil a plaque at Janáček’s birthplace in Hukvaldy. This and Janáček’s encounters at the Moravian spa town of Luhačovice with the younger married woman who in his late ‘Indian summer’ became his muse, Kamila Stösslová, suffuse the Mass with an atmosphere of pantheism rooted in the Czech countryside, and also with the spirit of pan-Slavism referenced in so many of his earlier works.
The version of the Mass familiar to listeners since it finally won wider international audiences in the 1950s is the published edition of 1929, incorporating the composer’s final revisions for its first Prague performance in April 1928. But before that, the work’s Brno premiere in December 1927 had been based on a text that contained some striking differences, its huge technical challenges smoothed over in subsequent revisions. The Mass’s earlier version was championed with great success in his final years by Charles Mackerras, in a version edited by Paul Wingfield, but more recently a new edition by the Czech scholar Jiří Zahrádka of the ‘September 1927’ version has increasingly found favour with conductors including Tomáš Netopil (Supraphon) and the late Jiří Bělohlávek (Decca).
Now another recording of the ‘September 1927’ version joins them, from the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno and the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg under the direction of Marko Letonja. The combination of a choir thoroughly versed in the Janáček idiom and an orchestra relatively fresh to the work is a thrilling one. Compared to Netopil and Bělohlávek, Letonja is sometimes more measured in his tempi, but this enables him to dig deep into the Mass’s textures and savour its many extraordinary sounds, at times evoking even more successfully its nature-rooted pantheism. And, from the startling metrical conflicts of the orchestral Úvod (Introduction) and the 5/4 metre of the Gospodi pomiluj (Kyrie), to the mighty brass and organ interjections of the ‘Crucifixus’ section of the Věruju (Credo) and the demanding restored passages in the Svet (Sanctus), Letonja’s forces rise to the challenges of Janáček’s exceptionally bold original conception. Like Mackerras, Letonja also uses the closing Intrada as a curtain raiser, as suggested by the programme of the first performance. It arguably adds an extra sense of expectation to the ensuing Introduction.
The soloists are an impressive team, including Swedish soprano Marlin Byström, radiant as the ‘angel’ in the Slava (Gloria), and Czech tenor Ladislav Elgr, fearless and blazing as the ‘celebrant’ in the eye-wateringly high solo entry of the Credo’s final section. At the organ (crucially important in the Gloria and Credo as well as in the fiery, heaven-storming organ solo that comprises the Mass’s penultimate section), Johann Vexo makes a mighty contribution, the instrument recorded separately at Strasbourg’s Temple Neuf but well-integrated into the sound-picture of the main venue, the Palais de la Musique et des Congrčs.
Throughout, the orchestra, with resplendently biting brass and some thrilling woodwind playing supported by formidable, agile strings, brings the huge colour of Janáček’s original scoring to life, while the chorus (excellently trained by chorus master Petr Fiala) draw on their unique familiarity with the composer’s style to bear in every bar, the demanding choral parts clearly holding no fears from them.
The disc’s added attraction is a lively and thoroughly committed performance of another late Janáček masterpiece, the Sinfonietta of 1926. Initially inspired by an outdoor military band concert in the town of Písek in 1924, this grew from its initial fanfares (scored for 9 trumpets in C, two tenor tubas and two bass trumpets plus timpani!) into a tribute to the composer’s home city of Brno, capturing the atmosphere of various key sights about the town, from the Queen’s Monastery where the young Janáček had his education to the forbidding castle, the liveliness of the street, and pride in its post-independence civic growth (‘The Town Hall’). Letonja directs a lively, spirited account of this most famous of Janáček’s works, with pungent brass providing the backbone and the massed fanfares re-emerging at the triumphant conclusion. Curiously, he opts for the ‘standard’ 1979 edition when the more recent score prepared by Zahrádka would have been preferable – the cymbal clash at the brass’s final re-entry is effectively a bar late on this recording, but it’s far from alone in the catalogue in that oversight. This, however, is a minor quibble when taken against the disc as a whole: a splendidly insightful new account of the Mass in a version that still deserves wider currency, and Janáček’s most successful orchestral work as the icing on the cake.
But the real catalyst for the Glagolitic Mass appears to have been the visit by Archbishop Prečan in July 1926 to unveil a plaque at Janáček’s birthplace in Hukvaldy. This and Janáček’s encounters at the Moravian spa town of Luhačovice with the younger married woman who in his late ‘Indian summer’ became his muse, Kamila Stösslová, suffuse the Mass with an atmosphere of pantheism rooted in the Czech countryside, and also with the spirit of pan-Slavism referenced in so many of his earlier works.
The version of the Mass familiar to listeners since it finally won wider international audiences in the 1950s is the published edition of 1929, incorporating the composer’s final revisions for its first Prague performance in April 1928. But before that, the work’s Brno premiere in December 1927 had been based on a text that contained some striking differences, its huge technical challenges smoothed over in subsequent revisions. The Mass’s earlier version was championed with great success in his final years by Charles Mackerras, in a version edited by Paul Wingfield, but more recently a new edition by the Czech scholar Jiří Zahrádka of the ‘September 1927’ version has increasingly found favour with conductors including Tomáš Netopil (Supraphon) and the late Jiří Bělohlávek (Decca).
Now another recording of the ‘September 1927’ version joins them, from the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno and the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg under the direction of Marko Letonja. The combination of a choir thoroughly versed in the Janáček idiom and an orchestra relatively fresh to the work is a thrilling one. Compared to Netopil and Bělohlávek, Letonja is sometimes more measured in his tempi, but this enables him to dig deep into the Mass’s textures and savour its many extraordinary sounds, at times evoking even more successfully its nature-rooted pantheism. And, from the startling metrical conflicts of the orchestral Úvod (Introduction) and the 5/4 metre of the Gospodi pomiluj (Kyrie), to the mighty brass and organ interjections of the ‘Crucifixus’ section of the Věruju (Credo) and the demanding restored passages in the Svet (Sanctus), Letonja’s forces rise to the challenges of Janáček’s exceptionally bold original conception. Like Mackerras, Letonja also uses the closing Intrada as a curtain raiser, as suggested by the programme of the first performance. It arguably adds an extra sense of expectation to the ensuing Introduction.
The soloists are an impressive team, including Swedish soprano Marlin Byström, radiant as the ‘angel’ in the Slava (Gloria), and Czech tenor Ladislav Elgr, fearless and blazing as the ‘celebrant’ in the eye-wateringly high solo entry of the Credo’s final section. At the organ (crucially important in the Gloria and Credo as well as in the fiery, heaven-storming organ solo that comprises the Mass’s penultimate section), Johann Vexo makes a mighty contribution, the instrument recorded separately at Strasbourg’s Temple Neuf but well-integrated into the sound-picture of the main venue, the Palais de la Musique et des Congrčs.
Throughout, the orchestra, with resplendently biting brass and some thrilling woodwind playing supported by formidable, agile strings, brings the huge colour of Janáček’s original scoring to life, while the chorus (excellently trained by chorus master Petr Fiala) draw on their unique familiarity with the composer’s style to bear in every bar, the demanding choral parts clearly holding no fears from them.
The disc’s added attraction is a lively and thoroughly committed performance of another late Janáček masterpiece, the Sinfonietta of 1926. Initially inspired by an outdoor military band concert in the town of Písek in 1924, this grew from its initial fanfares (scored for 9 trumpets in C, two tenor tubas and two bass trumpets plus timpani!) into a tribute to the composer’s home city of Brno, capturing the atmosphere of various key sights about the town, from the Queen’s Monastery where the young Janáček had his education to the forbidding castle, the liveliness of the street, and pride in its post-independence civic growth (‘The Town Hall’). Letonja directs a lively, spirited account of this most famous of Janáček’s works, with pungent brass providing the backbone and the massed fanfares re-emerging at the triumphant conclusion. Curiously, he opts for the ‘standard’ 1979 edition when the more recent score prepared by Zahrádka would have been preferable – the cymbal clash at the brass’s final re-entry is effectively a bar late on this recording, but it’s far from alone in the catalogue in that oversight. This, however, is a minor quibble when taken against the disc as a whole: a splendidly insightful new account of the Mass in a version that still deserves wider currency, and Janáček’s most successful orchestral work as the icing on the cake.
Reviews
The climactic passage in the Svet (Sanctus) here has an almost unbearable tension, the high-lying vocal parts – for soloists and chorus alike – excellently and urgently handled. ... Any Janáček fan will want to hear this version, together with the disc’s other work, the ever-thrilling Sinfonietta. Fiona MaddocksThe Observer 8 May 2022
Error on this page? Let us know here
Need more information on this product? Click here