LEOS JANACEK: Orchestral Suites from the Opera, Volumes 2 & 3
Vol. 2 = Kata Kabanova – Suite; The Makropulos Affair – Suite (both arr. by Peter Breiner) – New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/Peter Breiner/Vesa-Matti Leppanen, violin – Naxos 8.570556, 70:31 *****:
Vol. 3 = The Cunning Little Vixen – Suite; From the House of the Dead – Suite (both arr. by Peter Breiner) – New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/Peter Breiner/Vesa-Matti Leppanen, violin – Naxos 8.570706, 74:58 *****:
We seem to have missed Volume 1 of this series, but I wanted to bring to the attention of readers these excellent orchestral suites introducing some of the most effective music by the highly original composer. This music is less frequently heard because although his operas are path-breaking works, they are not among the very top operas performed by companies around the world.
Janacek sought in his operas more realism and connection with everyday life, and he had an expanded view of tonality, while leaning toward folk influences and modal structures. He used whole-tone scales but in a different way from Debussy. He said “Folksong knows of no atonality.” He specialized in speech-derived melodic lines, and his opera Jenufa (one of the two suites on Vol. 1, together with The Excursions of Mr. Broucek) was hailed as the first Moravian national opera. Sir Charles Mackrerras has conducted and recorded several of Janacek’s operas and referring to the repeated motifs in many of his works calls him “the first minimalist composer.” He is considered one of the most important Czech composers, along with Dvorak and Smetana.
Peter Breiner is a compatriot of Janacek and a composer, conductor and pianist as well as arranger. He has been Naxos’ in-house arranger/conductor and is perhaps best-known for his Baroque versions of Beatles tunes. In creating these operatic suites he is simply following in the tradition of the 19th century, when there were no broadcasts or recordings and the way the masses became familiar with some of the music of a grand opera was with instrumental suites as well as piano transcriptions of some of the major selections. The instrumental suites are also welcomed by those of us who prefer instrumental music to vocal. (Speaking for myself, I would much rather hear the transcriptions and instrumental portions of Wagnerian operas than the vocal originals.)
Kata Kabanova used as a basis the tragedy by Russian dramatist Ostrovsky titled The Storm. Its main character was a young woman called Kata. Her story is similar to that of Madama Butterfly, with the protagonist ending her life at the conclusion by throwing herself into the Volga. The Overture and four movements take us thru the highlights of the opera, with the last section “The Storm is Coming,” the longest by far and innovative in its instrumentation, as Janacek spins the cyclone thru the various orchestral sections. The Makropulos Affair is described as a philosophical comedy concerning a 337-year-old opera singer, the daughter of an alchemist. The first of the six movements begins late in the opera after the secret of Elina’s agelessness has been discovered, but the third movement uses material from the opera’s first act. The music has lyrical passages pitted against driving repeated motives, as it seeks to protray the discrepancy between Elina’s need for the potion to extend her life further and the striving of the men in her life for her affection. The final music of the suite comes from the opera’s last moments, when the singer rejects the potion for a natural death.
The Cunning Little Vixen opera is available on several video DVDs as well as CDs. Both it and the second opera transcribed on this CD originated from Janacek’s own libretti. The tale of the little fox came from a series of cartoons, and though it retains some of the humor of the original it is a serious opera concerning aspects of human existence such as life and death, love and loneliness and good and evil. Some of the evocative music is redolent of the forest setting, though it often assumes a melancholy mood. The last of the six movements is titled “Vixen is Running,” but in the opera the Vixen is shot by the hunter and a chorus of fox cubs sing the final hymn of the glories of nature.
From the House of the Dead is a much bleaker opera and suite, which Janacek created from memoirs by Dostoevsky of his time imprisoned in a remote area of Siberia. The Overture establishes the caustic tone of this transcription, and the following five movements come from vignettes of life in the prison camp. The longest section is titled “The Play and the Pantomime,” and follows a portion in which the prisoners perform two plays on a makeshift stage at the camp. The feeling of the music is strongly pessimistic compared to that of the pantheistic Cunning Little Vixen.
It seems a bit surprising that the orchestra on this Janacek series is not one of the fine East European orchestras so often used when economies of recording must be made, but New Zealand’s leading professional orchestra instead. However, they are first rate in these suites, following up on the many other CDs they have recorded so far for Naxos.
– John Sunier
