Oeuvres orchestrales, Volume 2

Description

True to its commitment to recording complete cycles devoted to a composer, Chandos presents the second volume dedicated to the orchestral works of Leos Janácek. It is Edward Gardner, music director of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, who selects the works: the program opens with Jalousie, a piece used for the overture to the opera Jenufa, and continues with two ballads for orchestra, The Ballad of Blanik and The Child of the Violinist, a setting of traditional Czech poems. Finally, the program continues brilliantly with The Wandering of the Little Soul, a one-movement violin concerto (soloist James Ehnes), then the Danube Symphony, an unfinished work reconstructed here, and finally Taras Bulba, the musical tale that has become one of the masterpieces of Leos Janacek’s orchestral music and is performed here with unique vitality.