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It’s difficult to know quite who this disc is aimed at.  Peter Breiner has taken some highlights from these operas and arranged them to work as orchestral concert suites, somewhat like Stokowski’s treatment of Wagner.  It’s a laudable endeavour and the result is pleasing and never less than interesting.  Who’s it meant to appeal to, however?  Surely anyone interested in this music will already know the operas in their original form where there are no cuts to intervene and frustrate the progress.  I very much doubt that anyone would come to this disc as a way into Janáček’s work: better, surely, to take the plunge and go for the real McCoy. 

Anyway, the results are pleasing and very well played.  In Jenůfa Breiner sticks broadly to Janáček’s orchestral textures with the occasional embellishment, such as a solo trumpet to sing Jenůfa’s lines or a cor anglais for the Kostelnička’s.  The opening movement goes from the beginning of the opera with its ostinato xylophone for the mill wheel.  Oddly, though, we get the opening of Act 3 in the third movement before it suddenly reverts back to the opening of Act 2.  The booklet notes argue for this “cinematic” treatment of the score, but if you know the opera then it just sounds a bit odd.  Moving from this tension into the wedding celebrations then feels a bit jarring.  The playing itself is very good, but the orchestra isn’t helped by somewhat recessed recorded sound; this in turn detracts from the immediacy of the dance movements, and the swell of the ending lacks the final dramatic edge. 

I enjoyed Brouček more as a distinct work, perhaps because I don’t know the opera.  It opens with a jovial depiction of Prague and of Brouček himself, before much more delicate orchestration underlines the change of location to the Moon in the second movement.  The atmosphere of the spectral strings and glockenspiel (or is it a celesta?) contrasts with the lovely romantic swell which occurs at 5:45, and I was reminded a little of middle-period Mahler.  The third movement dances are all good fun, by turns lithe and swaggering, though the patriotic celebrations of the finale feel pedestrian rather than triumphal. 

So if you already like Janáček’s operas then this would be a fitting enough supplement to recordings you may already have.  But would I recommend that you invest in this disc before a full set of the operas themselves?  No: roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the real thing instead.

Simon Thompson

see also Review by Dominy Clements

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