Orchestral Works 2

The Bergen Philharmonic and conductor Edward Gardner are featured once again on this second volume in the Chandos labels series devoted to the orchestral works of Leo Janáek. The repertoire on this disc includes some of the composers greatest programmatic pieces. Unsurprisingly, the first piece featured here is Jealousy his first declared piece of program music, originally written to preface the opera Jenfa but never included in any production of it during his lifetime. Both The Ballad of Blaník and The Fiddlers Child (also known as a ballad for orchestra) are characterized by the use of musicals symbols reflecting the Czech poems on which the pieces are based and also some of the composers personal reflections and responses. The one-movement Violin Concerto, The Wandering of a Little Soul, is a more mysterious piece, with uncertainties surrounding the title, date of creation, and the goals of its composition. Milo tdro and Leo Faltus, using Janáeks sketches, reconstructed the version recorded here, in similar fashion to the composers unfinished Danube symphony. An interpretation of the famous tale by Gogol, Taras Bulba (1915) was Janáeks most substantial orchestral work to that time. It is inflected with folk dances, battle and horse-riding music, and suffering and love, all brought to a grandiloquent apotheosis in orchestration of almost cinematic vividness. Gardners way with Janáeks music is pretty persuasive. Chandos have recorded the orchestra in warm but well-detailed and wellfocused sound. (MusicWeb Intl on V1)