Czech Music for Strings

“The Janacek Chamber Orchestra is 11 or 12 players strong, but sounds larger. It produces a rich tone, with evident enthusiasm for the varied textures that all the composers require in different ways; and their idiomatic style, especially in the Janacek Suite, is a joy...the Haas study is a treat, and it's good to find it in a relatively mainstream programme.” --Classic FM Magazine, September 2011 ****

“even at this stage of his career [Janacek] was forming a voice and had a fine ear for sonorities. This is well caught by the excellent chamber orchestra that takes his name, and by this recording. The arrangement of his First String Quartet gives the group something to play and is cleverly done” --Gramophone Magazine, October 2011

Janáček Chamber Orchestra

This recording presents music by the Czech composers Janáček, Martinů, and Haas, all of whom were prominent figures in their country’s musical history during the early twentieth century. The works are performed by the Janáček Chamber Orchestra, which has won awards for their interpretations of Czech music.

Janáček wrote his String Quartet No. 1 during a particularly creative period towards the end of his life. It took its inspiration from Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata, a portrait of a loveless marriage. The dramatic power and deep emotion of this work, coupled with some extraordinary textures and eccentric orchestration, place it among the greatest string quartets ever written. It is here played in a version for string orchestra. Also recorded is the Suite, one of Janáček’s very first works for orchestral ensemble.

Pavel Haas was considered the most gifted of all of Janáček’s many students. A composer of Jewish descent, he was transported to Auschwitz in 1941, where he died in 1944. The Study for String Orchestra was written in the summer of 1943 for the Auschwitz camp string orchestra, and the first performance of the work is preserved in part in a German propaganda film.

After Janáček, Martinů was the leading Czech composer of the last century. A highly prolific composer, he often wrote at great speed and the prize-winning Sextet for Strings is no exception. It was written in just seven days in May 1932. This work displays a real exuberance, from the energetic opening movement through to the spirited finale.

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Szymanowski, Janacek, Haas: String Quartets arranged for String Orchestra

You have to know how to pick 'em. String quartets transcribed for string orchestra aren't exactly the rarity they used to be, either on disc or in concert, but most of them (starting with Mahler) focus on the chestnuts of the classical period, Beethoven and Schubert in particular. However interesting these efforts may be, on disc there's little reason to sacrifice the intimacy of the originals for the cruder contrasts and weight of tone of the larger ensemble. Here we have something different.

Artistic Quality 10/10 Sound Quality - ClassicsToday.com

Richard Tognetti has selected three works, two of which (the Szymanowski and the Janácek) are cornerstones of the modern quartet repertoire, while Nazi victim Pavel Haas' Second String Quartet, clearly influenced by Janácek, certainly sits easily in their exalted company. Szymanowski's lush textures, the plentiful use of coloristic devices in the other two works, and the characterful exploitation of big dynamic contrasts generally mark these pieces as ripe for transcription, and they sound marvelous here. Tognetti wisely leaves to solo strings those moments (such as the openings of the first and third movements of the Janácek) that require generous rubato and that otherwise would sound stiff when played en masse. That said, he leads stirring and passionate performances of all three works, and his efforts should make new friends for the Haas (though I do wish he had included the optional jazz percussion parts in the finale).

The playing of the Australian Chamber Orchestra leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. They attack the music with rapturous tone in the many high-lying passages so beloved of Szymanowski, and make of the most of those wild ponticello eruptions in the second movement of the Janácek. Chandos also gives the musicians a big, bold, rich sonic ambience in which to operate. At every level, this musical experiment must be accounted a total success, and more to the point, an audible joy from first note to last.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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