Leos Janacek
          Orchestral Music

* Danube (Symphonic Poem)*
* Incidental Music to Schluck und Jau
* Moravian Dances
* Suite, op. 3

Jana Valaskova (soprano)*, Zdenek Husek (viola)*, Slovak Philharmonic
Orchestra/Libor Pesek
Naxos 8.555245 (originally on Marco Polo 8.220362) {DDD}  TT: 48:55

Janacek early, Janacek late.  Although Janacek had formal musical training,
it was mainly as a music teacher.  He mostly had to teach himself how to
compose.  He begins, naturally enough, by imitating composers he admires
-- mainly Smetana and Dvorak.  The Moravian Dances differ very little
in intent from Smetana's dances for The Bartered Bride or from Dvorak's
Slavonic Dances.  One sees little borrowings from both sources here and
there in Janacek's orchestration.  The Moravian Dances, however, remain a
good knock-off, with less structural and instrumental elegance than that
of their predecessors.

The Suite, op.  3, shows greater formal ambition than the Dances, as well
as greater dramatic punch, perhaps due to the fact that Janacek used some
themes from his incomplete opera, The Beginning of a Romance.  One also
notes a stronger Slavic, almost Rimskian, tinge to this music, particularly
in the slow movement, as opposed to the still rather Germanic Moravian
Dances.  Still, the idiom isn't what we normally associate with the
composer.  While I admit the attractions of the Suite, the later works
of Janacek, roughly from Jenufa on, excite me far more.  The two late
scores -- Danube and the incidental music to Schluck und Jau -- typify the
strongly individual (if not downright eccentric) workings of the composer's
mind.  The symphonic poem Danube, in spite of its title, portrays not the
river, but conflates two stories about women who killed themselves by
drowning.  I confess I don't follow the narrative through the music,
perhaps because I don't know the stories in detail, but it makes little
difference to me.  The music itself grabs my interest from first to last.
The opening bars establish Janacek right away -- astringent harmonies miles
away from Dvorak, little motifs obsessively worried over.  I also hear an
expansive lyric quality I associate with late Martinu, years before the
fact.  One of the composer's most original strokes comes in the lively
third movement:  an extended vocalise for soprano and a solo viola.
Apparently, it represents the gaiety of Vienna.  To my ear, it resembles
passages in The Cunning Little Vixen that portray the vitality of nature.
Incidentally, this recording marks a premiere of sorts.  Danube was
unperformed in Janacek's lifetime.  Indeed, Janacek probably intended a
fifth movement.  When one heard Danube at all (and before this CD, I never
had), apparently it was in the edition of Janacek's pupil, Osvald Chlubna.
Three Janacek scholars have gone back to the original manuscript and,
according to the notes, made minimal "adjustments."

Janacek was asked to provide incidental music to a Berlin production of
Gerhardt Hauptmann's Shakespearian comedy Schluck und Jau.  The composer
was less than thrilled with the play and got as far as four numbers of
what was to have been an elaborate score.  Eventually, the production went
ahead with music by Smetana.  Two of Janacek's numbers were apparently too
fragmentary to be included in an orchestral suite, put together by the same
trio of scholars who worked on Danube.  They have come up with a glimpse
into what would have been a knockout score.  The first movement, probably
intended as an introduction, is at the level of the Sinfonietta, as good
as Janacek wrote.  I'd argue the same for the second movement.  Terrific
stuff, which makes this CD, especially at its Naxos price, well worth
buying.

Pesek leads rhythmically exciting performances.  Indeed, I've yet to hear
a bad reading from this conductor, and I've been lucky enough to attend
several superb concerts with him on the podium.  However, I find the
tone of the Slovak Philharmonic strings rather thin and the recording
over-bright, which exacerbates the first problem.

Steve Schwartz