Janáček (Leoš' Lair)

[Luke]

A Janacek fan simply MUST have a copy of Riklada, too - it's on the first and third of those discs, and recorded elsewhere too (I particularly love the recording with Thierry Fischer on Chandos, for some reason - it's very vivid). It's another of those much-ignored pieces, because of its unclassifiable nature, maybe, but it is utterly enchanting. And it has a part for ocarina, too 

And Guido - just checking - you do have the Diary of One Who Disappeared, don't you?  Surely you must.....did I ever give you the Blachut recording? In any 'top 10' of Janacek, this one figures highly, IMO.

[Brian]

Is the Ancerl the one to get then? Whats all this controversy with versions? Usually with Janacek original is best in my experience...

I'll field this one if Luke will allow me, or at any rate if he isn't drafting a reply at exactly this moment. He will be able to supply more detail, knowing the story of the Mass far better than I do...

The original version (now sometimes known as 'Wingfield' after the scholar who restored it) was cast aside at the premiere as being practically difficult to bring off live. It calls for three sets of timpani and demands the clarinetist race offstage in an impossibly short period of time (or a spare clarinetist spend the entire performance waiting in the wings). The miracle of recording technology has enabled Sir Charles Mackerras to record this version twice, once on Chandos with Danish forces - to my taste not 'craggy' and grand enough, and in boomy Chandos sound, but definitely an enjoyable version - and once with the Czech Philharmonic on a Supraphon performance DVD - MDT claims they shipped this to me two weeks ago and since I live in London it really should have gotten here by now. That's irritating.

Anyhow, major changes to how the work sounds center on two points:
- The closing 'Intrada' is also played at the opening, giving the work a symmetrical layout of five choral movements, centered on the huge 'Veruju', bookended by two instrumental sections on each side, and beginning and ending with the same 'Intrada.'
- At the center of 'Veruju,' and therefore at the heart of the whole work, is a crucifixion scene in which all three timpanists bang away and the brass let out shrill cries of agony, in a passage which was massively cut for the premiere performance.

The Ancerl version is the usual, ie cut, version, but in terms of actual performance, inspiration level, intensity, and even sound quality, it is the ideal. I'm hoping the Mackerras DVD will match its awe-inspiring combination of grandeur and rhythmic drive, but the Royal Mail may have eaten it.

[Guido]

Ok thanks guys! All very interesting!

I have no money at the moment, so it'll have to be the library for the moment. I'm assuming the Elegy for Olga is also a must. Some of this stuff is on spotify, though not all. Riklada isn't, and I don't think the Bezruc are either.


I do have Diary, but have never got into as much as I should. Not sure if it's the Blachut I have - I did get it from you though. I will give it a listen today after I finish listening to Jenufa!

[Luke]

Guido, Brian is right with what he says about the Glagolitic - if you remember we discussed the issue over PM, including Wingfield, who, as you know I knew, slightly, at Cambridge....you remember what I said, I presume!

The changes Brain outlines are the most obvious - the doubling up of the Intrada at both ends of the work, and the incredible, at the time basically-unplayable writing for timps in the centre of the Credo. But there are other changes, and two are remarkable - the Gospodi should be in 5/4. not 4/4, and the in the Uvod there should be three distinct rhythmic layers simultaneously - in 3/4, septuplet quavers v quintuplet quavers v straight 3/4 writing.

These changes are so massive in import that it makes a recommendation hard - because whilst everything Brian says about the power of the Ancerl performance is true, I personally find it hard to listen to any performance that doesn't include these features. Once heard, never forgotten, as they say. Unfortunately there hasn't yet been a recording of the original version to come close to Ancerl. In addition to the two mentioned by Brian there was also a performance in this version on a BBC music mag disc, Feb 2009, conducted by Hickox which I hope everyone snapped up (also includes a Mackerras Sinfonietta). That's nice disc, with a live atmosphere that makes the thing more electric, closer to the Ancerl in that respect at least. Doesn't help, I know, but I also saw CUMS I do the Wingfield edition in Kings' Chapel back in 1995 or 1996. Was a mighty concert, that one!

[Brian]

Congrats on that, your 1000th post, Luke!

As it happens, your comments prompted me to do a bit of searching and I found (on OperaShare) a 2008 Proms performance of the Sinfonietta and (original version) Glagolitic Mass with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. I've just listened to it.

The Sinfonietta is a bit of a disaster. The BBC Symphony sound woefully unprepared for the challenge: the brass grow pale in the face of the opening fanfare, some of the trumpets start dropping clunkers, and then in the next two movements they hide behind the rest of the orchestra rather than seeming to explode out of it. Of course, this could be the fault of the bad radio recorded sound and lossy file - I usually can't detect lossiness, for instance finding nothing wrong with Naxos Music Library, but there are problems with this. The finale isn't "orgasmic" (as a Panamanian swimsuit model who saw it live once described it to me) (sorry not to provide context for that  ) but sort of workmanlike. It's a bit of a relief, though, as string players and winds have been losing sync and botching rhythms for twenty-five minutes. Moreover, Boulez' slow conducting - and I would like it slow in some parts! - sounds awkward and ungainly. Maybe this is a rude sentiment, but it just sounds like a creaky old man getting up in the morning.

I skipped the Capriccio for Left Hand: I don't know that work and didn't want it to make a poor first impression.

The Glagolitic Mass went much better than the Sinfonietta, overall. The brass began the work still shy, and the radio balances are so poor that, when the trumpets are asked to spew notes all over the place at the end of the first Intrada, you can't hear them at all. Pity, because is there a harder trumpet solo anywhere? Like Mackerras, Boulez takes Uvod very quickly to my taste: did it get slowed down for the cut version?

Starting in Slava, the trombones and tubas really start to come into their own, and thankfully are quite audible. The double bass are really powerful throughout this and the Sinfonietta, actually - I wonder where the microphones were?! The chorus is very fine, and so is the tenor, who struggles like a salmon heading upstream to be heard over the almighty din; he succeeds, but to my ears the struggle is half the appeal. The central orchestral episode in Veruju is fantastic: those larger-than-life basses sawing away, a well-controlled buildup to the crisis point, the brass finally fully awake, the strings staggering under the weight of the snare drum and (single set of) timpani at the climax. The chorus really sound like they are trying to revive the dead. Unforgettable!

Svet is slightly more problematic: the soprano has a wobble that's a little hideous. The chorus is fantastic, though, and when the big "darkness to light" transition arrives, Boulez doesn't double the tempo like Colin Davis did live with the LSO last October. That pissed me off: I will get to see this music played live probably once in my entire life and Davis' stupid ultra-fast tempo ruins an entire movement. Anyway. Hey! There's a bunch of extra music in this movement that I forgot about! Simon Preston's organ solo is superb, although his instrument is too good.    What I'd really like isn't a nice church organ but something to blow out the windows, and this isn't blowing out the windows, at least not until the huge juicy final chord. The orchestra proceeds without a second's delay to an Intrada in which the trumpets are much more alive than they were the first time (though they still can't vomit out notes like pros in the final bars), suggesting that, weirdly, the performance has invigorated not just the audience but the orchestra too.

I guess the real sign of success is the coughing. In the pauses during the Sinfonietta, everyone in the Royal Albert Hall was very clearly suffering from a lung disease. But the pause right before the beginning of Veruju, and after the delirious "Amit! Amit!"s and the organ's first big solo chords, is so quiet I grinned. And after the Agnece Bozij - one single cough. At the end - the crowd goes wild!

The Mackerras DVD is still in the mail, but I think we're probably yet waiting for the ideal Sinfonietta + Glagolitic Mass in fully modern sound. Naxos has just recorded the two works with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Antoni Wit, and I am alternately hopeful and fearful. Hopeful, because Wit is a genius handling massive orchestral and choral forces (his Mahler 8 and Penderecki Credo are testaments to that), he knows how to find broad tempi which don't feel slow because the music bursts by itself out of the speakers, and the Warsaw Philharmonic has one of the most luxurious sounds around. Fearful, because the Naxos announcement does not say which version of the Glagolitic Mass was recorded, and in my mind that's as good as an admission that they picked the inferior "traditional" version. I hope not. If they did, the Boulez performance squeezes into the category, "good enough."

Luke, if you win the lottery, would you promise to go Gilbert Kaplan on us and hire an orchestra/chorus/soloists to record the Mass?

[Luke]

Great post, Brian! There are more Wingfield edition Glagolitics out there than I realised....

(to answer your question, no, I don't think the Uvod was slowed down in the last-minute re-jig. It was simply a matter of Janacek ironing all that fun 7;6;5 polyrhythm into an easier to perform, uniform 6)

Congrats on that, your 1000th post, Luke!

...in this incarnation! Less prolific than I used to be, it's taken me some time to get to 1000 this time around!

[Guido]

...in this incarnation!

Which must be now at least the 4th since the new forum opened?

[Luke]

Only the third, I think!

[Mirror Image]

Currently my favorite performance of Glagolitic Mass is from this now out-of-print Tilson Thomas recording (coupled with an excellent version of Sinfonietta):

[asin]B0000027IN[/asin]

I've liked Janacek's music for quite some time, but now after hearing this recording it's prompted me to start listening to more of his music. He was one of the greats no question about it.

[MishaK]

As it happens, your comments prompted me to do a bit of searching and I found (on OperaShare) a 2008 Proms performance of the Sinfonietta and (original version) Glagolitic Mass with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. I've just listened to it.

The Sinfonietta is a bit of a disaster. The BBC Symphony sound woefully unprepared for the challenge: the brass grow pale in the face of the opening fanfare, some of the trumpets start dropping clunkers, and then in the next two movements they hide behind the rest of the orchestra rather than seeming to explode out of it.

If you're a member of the concertarchive newsgroup, there is a performance there of the Sinfonietta with Boulez and the CSO that has none of these problems, given the caliber of the CSO brass. Highly recommended. Guaranteed to impress Panamanian swimsuit models.  Certainly a more analytic take than some, but terrific playing.

The changes Brain outlines are the most obvious - the doubling up of the Intrada at both ends of the work, and the incredible, at the time basically-unplayable writing for timps in the centre of the Credo. But there are other changes, and two are remarkable - the Gospodi should be in 5/4. not 4/4, and the in the Uvod there should be three distinct rhythmic layers simultaneously - in 3/4, septuplet quavers v quintuplet quavers v straight 3/4 writing.

These changes are so massive in import that it makes a recommendation hard - because whilst everything Brian says about the power of the Ancerl performance is true, I personally find it hard to listen to any performance that doesn't include these features. Once heard, never forgotten, as they say.

Absolutely true! This issue is interesting as I didn't realize it existed until I heard the Ancerl and Mackerras recordings. My first introduction to the Glagolitic Mass was a stellar performance of the original version with Boulez and the CSO from 2000 that was issued by the CSO a couple of years ago for their (now discontinued) annual spring fundraiser for which they issued a 2CD-set "from the archives". Boulez conducted the Glagolitic Mass here in Chicago again just this past November which was an absolutely spellbinding performance. My wife went with me and she thought it was the best CSO concert she had heard in years. They have a superb young Russian timpanist, BTW, and the organ soloist was an animal! You've never heard the organ solo played like that. At any rate, after this performance I went out and started looking for other recordings and found the highly recommended Ancerl and Mackerras performances, only to discover that these are performances of this - to me hitherto unknown - bastardized version with the simplified rhythms and timpani part and the absence of the opening Intrada. As interesting as these performances are, they are indeed unlistenable to me after hearing the original version.

The miracle of recording technology has enabled Sir Charles Mackerras to record this version twice, once on Chandos with Danish forces - to my taste not 'craggy' and grand enough, and in boomy Chandos sound, but definitely an enjoyable version - and once with the Czech Philharmonic on a Supraphon performance DVD

Which recordings are these Mackerras recordings? The 1985 Supraphon Czech PO recording I have is the bastardized simplified version.

[71 dB]

Just recently I borrowed Janáček's String Quartets (Melos Quartet/HM) from a friend. I found them surprisingly good. I had not heard almost anything by this composer before.

[Guido]

Why surpsingly good?

[not edward]

Which recordings are these Mackerras recordings? The 1985 Supraphon Czech PO recording I have is the bastardized simplified version.

The Danish Mackerras is of the original version, but the performance isn't as good as on his Czech recording or the Ancerl one.

[Luke]

Exactly - but hence my problem, the one Mensch said he shares: the original version of the piece is so much more dramatic, it's hard to listen to any recording which doesn't use that edition without pining for the missing chunks! What to do? If only Ancerl could come back and re-record! I have to say that I cannot understand any conductor who doesn't use the original score now that it is possible to do so. What rationale could there be? The changes were forced on Janacek, and not made for any reason other than expediency - they do not represent his final thoughts on the piece and they did not make it a stronger work. It is either lazy or ignorant to use the older version with the Wingfield one in existence, IMO

[MishaK]

The Danish Mackerras is of the original version, but the performance isn't as good as on his Czech recording or the Ancerl one.

Thanks.

[71 dB]

Why surpsingly good?

Because they exceeded my expectations so much.

[MishaK]

Because they exceeded my expectations.

...which are always low when the composer isn't Elgar? 

[Mirror Image]

I wonder why it took Janacek so long to decide to become a composer? Anyone know this?

[71 dB]

...which are always low when the composer isn't Elgar? 

Of course not. It's not easy to put your expectations on the right level when you haven't heard nearly anything by a composer before. Next Janacek work will encounter higher expectations. 

[71 dB]

I wonder why it took Janacek so long to decide to become a composer? Anyone know this?

I thought it was the surrounding world that had the difficulties to decide whether he is a composer or not...