Album

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tomáš Netopil

Janáček: Orchestral Suites - Jenůfa, Káťa Kabanová, Fate

Catalogue Number: SU 4194-2
Published: 23rd September 2016
Genre: Orchestral
Format: 1 CD
Janáček - Orchestral Suites / Tomáš Netopil
Leoš Janáček - orchestral suites from the operas Jenufa (arr. Tomáš Ille), Katya Kabanova (arr. Jaroslav Smolka)* and Fate (arr. František Jílek)

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Tomáš Netopil

Janáček was one of the most distinguished composers of the 20th century, with his operas enjoying particular renown all over the world. Yet he has bequeathed us precious few pieces for independent symphony orchestra. Hence, a number of conductors (Václav Talich, followed by František Jílek, Sir Charles Mackerras and others) have striven to expand this limited repertoire by creating suites from his operas. The present recording features such treatments of his three major musical dramas. Jenufa was the first opera to be set to a prose text. The currently globally celebrated piece reflected the sorrow Janáček felt after the death of his two beloved children and gave rise to a deep personal crisis, when in 1903 the National Theatre in Prague declined to stage the piece on the grounds that it was of dubious artistic quality. In Fate, Janáček experimented with and explored the potentialities of the musical-dramatic form itself. Similarly to Jenufa, it too met with rejection and would only be premiered 30 years after the composer's death. Katya Kabanova is one of the greatest Janáček works and one of the most beautiful lyric operas of the 20th century and beyond. The CD presents Janáček's singular musical idiom in suites from his three pivotal operas. The artists featured on the recording, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the conductor Tomáš Netopil, have garnered acclaim with two previous Janáček projects (Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba, etc., SU 4131; Glagolitic Mass, The Eternal Gospel, SU 4150), both of them voted Gramophone Editor's Choice.

The singular universe of Leoš Janáček's operas in a symphonic garb.

Reviews

“They’re medleys of big themes and interludes in which vocal parts are sometimes replaced by instruments…which are played by the Prague orchestra under Tomáš Netopil with weighty carefulness…but there is detail and richness in the playing that feels very much at home.”
The Guardian, 22nd September 2016

“Tomáš Netopil leitet uns durch die musikalische Welt seines Landsmannes, bringt dabei zahllose Stimmen aus dem Geflecht hervor und lässt sie miteinander und gegeneinander wirken. Die einzelnen Titel aus den Opern besitzen innere Geschlossenheit, manche aufgeladen mit wirkungsvoll magischem Klang. Die Übergänge verbinden die Nummern größtenteils geschickt, ohne übermäßig mit dem Fluss zu brechen.”
The New Listener, July 2018

Leoš Janáček
1. Jenůfa. Symphonic Suite from the Opera 22:46
Leoš Janáček
2. Káťa Kabanová. Orchestral Suite from the Opera 21:55
Leoš Janáček
3. Fate. Orchestral Suite from the Opera 17:12