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Janacek: Choruses for Male Voices

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Leos Janaček (1854-1928) Choruses for Male Voices The Czech composer Leos Janaček is now widely regarded as being one of the most important and...

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Leos Janaček (1854-1928) Choruses for Male Voices The Czech composer Leos Janaček is now widely regarded as being one of the most important and original artists of the early twentieth century. A distinguished musical dramatist, he wrote a total of nine operas at least five of which are considered to be major works that have become a regular part of the repertory - Jenůfa (1894-1903), Kalya Kabanova (1919-21), The Cunning Little Vixen (1921-23), The Makropulos Affair (1923-25) and From the House of the Dead (1927-28). Janaček was a multi-faceted artist, a composer, conductor, organist, teacher, writer and a significant authority on folk-music, and the stylistic trait that is central to an understanding of his work is the unique treatment of melody resulting from his intensive study of Moravian speech, and more specifically the subtle fluctuations of spoken intonation brought about by the speaker' s changing inner emotional state. The composer was of the opinion that 'a fragment of national life is attached to every word uttered by the people; the melody of their speech should be studied in every detail'.

Both Janaček's grandfather and father were teachers and musicians and at the age of eleven Leos entered the Augustinian Monastery in Brno as a chorister.

Here he benefited greatly from the encouragement of the choirmaster and composer Pavel Křizkovsk�, eventually succeeding him as choirmaster in 1872. Janaček's excellent work with the choir led to a request the following year to conduct the Svatopluk (a post he held from 1873-77), a working-men's choral society for which he wrote his first compositions. In 1874 he undertook further music studies, first at the Prague Organ School then at the Leipzig Conservatory and in Vienna, before returning to Brno as a music master at the Teachers' Institute An added incentive to write for chorus came with the formation in 1903 of the Moravian Teachers' Choir (the same choir as on this recording). Janaček established a close friendship with its conductor, Ferdinand Vach, and it was this choir that gave the premieres of most of his works in the genre.

Following an early period of romantic works the language of which was indebted to earlier Czech composers, notably Dvořak, the formation of Janaček's individual style dates from the composition of his third opera Jenůfa. The final, intensely creative decade of his life coincided with Jenůfa's long-overdue snccess, the birth of an independent Czechoslovakia, and his love for a young married woman, Kamila Stosslova. To this utterly remarkable late period belong some of Janaček's finest works including the orchestral rhapsody Taras Bulba (1915-1918), the song-cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared (1917-19), the Sinfonietta (1926), the two String Quartets (1923 and 1928), and the Glagolitic Mass (1926), as well as his operatic masterpieces.

Apart from opera the only other genre that Janaček worked in throughout his life is the one featured on this disc, the unaccompanied chorus.

Of the four Čtyři lidove muzske sbory (Four folk male-voice choruses) only one is not based on a folk text, Coz ta nase břiza (Our Birch Tree, 1893). Its text is by Smetana's librettist Eliska Krasnohorska and likens the trembling of the birch leaves to the palpitations of the heart. Orani (Ploughing, 1873) was not only Janaček's first ever work for male-voice chorus but also his earliest known composition. In Vinek (The Garland, 1893) Janaček uses the original folk melody in its entirety, whilst the witty Peřina (The Quilt, 1914) catalogues the many useful attributes of a quilt!

The Čtvero muzsk�ch sborů (Four male-voice choruses) date from 1885 and bear the following dedication on the title page. 'Dedicated to the esteemed master Mr Antonin Dvořak in token of unbounded respect by Leos Janaček'.

Dvořak was actually rather taken aback by the work's audacious modulations. The Čtvero muzsk�ch sborů moravsk�ch (Four Moravian male-voice choruses) were composed in 1904 and are dedicated to the Moravian Teachers' Choral Society The highly chromatic Komafi (Tbe Gnat's Wedding) and Rozloučeni (Parting) are both based on Moravian folk-songs annotated by the renowned collector Frantisek Susil, whilst the texts of the passionate Dez vis (If you knew) and the humorous Klekanica (The Evening Witch) were written by Andřej Přikryl.

The next three works form the zenith of Janaček's achievements in the genre of unaccompanied chorus - Kantor Halfar (Teacher Halfar; 1906, rev. 1917), Maryčka Magdonova (1906-7) and Sedmdesat tisic (The 70,000) (1909, rev.1913). They represent a trilogy of sorts in that all three are based on texts drawn from Petr Bezruč's Silesian Songs, a collection of 61 poems the bitter critique of which, detailing social exploitation and poverty, found a particularly sympathetic recipient in Janaček. Whether the text concerned a people as a whole (The 70,000) or the more personal tragedy of an individual (the protagonsists of Kantor Halfar and Maryčka Magdonova are both driven to suicide), Janaček responded with some of his most powerful music. AII three works are cast in a free rondo form, with complex polyphonic webs created by the accumulation of numerous motifs. The 70.000 is a quite extraordinary work about the revolt of Silesian miners, with almost all its material drawn from the opening eight-bar melody. The forceful climax, a series of passionate, agitated shouts from the chorus, packs a hugely visceral punch.

The impetus to write Česka Iegie (The Czech Legion, 1918) came from a momentous event in the history of Janaček's native land: the aforementioned birth of an independent Czechoslovakiaon 28th October 1918. The inspiration for the highly regarded Potuln� silenec (The Wandering Madman, 1922) for male chorus and solo soprano came from a quite different source, setting an allegorical text by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore whose poetry reading in Prague in June 1921 made an enormous impression upon the composer.

Tři muzske sbory (Three male-voice choruses) date from 1888, although the third chorus Zarlivec (The Jealous Man) was only rediscovered in 1940 amongst Dvořak's papers after Janaček had sent it to the composer to ask for his opinion. Finally, the youthful Laska opravdiva (True Love) is notated without time signature or key signature although the key of G major is adhered to throughout.

Peter Quinn

Moravian Teachers Choir

The Moravian Teachers Choir ranks as one of the best known Czech chorus ensembles. It was established in 1903 and its first members were graduates of the Teachers College in Kroměřiz.

From the flfst the choir embarked on an active programme that included works by many distinguished Czech composers from the tum of the century and involved the ensemble in concert appearances at home and abroad. The founder and first principal director of the choir was Ferdinand Vach, who was succeeded in 1936 by Jan Soupal, who worked with the ensemble regularly during the Nazi occupation and continued his activities after the war, with further concert engagements that took the choir to Belgium, the Netherlands, the Soviet Urtion and Great Britain and brought a number of recordings for Supraphon.

Disc 1

Coz ta na nase briza (Our Birch Tree), JW IV/22

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Ploughing - 2:26
Our Birch Tree - 3:27
The Garland - 2:42
The Quilt - 2:30

Muzske sbory (Male-Voice Choruses), JW IV/17

(more info)

Composed by: Anonymous Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Warning - 3:02
O, Love - 2:12
Oh, to Be a Soldier - 2:20
Your Wondrous Eyes - 2:31

Ctvero muzskych sboru moravskych (4 Moravian Male-Voice Choruses), JW IV/28

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Since You Know - 2:05
The Gnat's Wedding - 3:19
The Evening Ghost - 2:32
Parting - 3:18

Kantor Halfar (Halfar the Schoolmaster), JW VI/33

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Teacher Halfar - 4:37

Marycka Magdonova, JW IV/34

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Marycka Magdonova - 8:31

70.000 (Sedmdesat tisic) (Seventy Thousand), JW IV/36

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Seventy Thousand - 6:05

Ceska legie (The Czech Legion), JW IV/42

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

The Czech Legion - 8:41

Potulny silenec (The Wandering Madman), JW IV/43

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

The Wandering Madman - 5:19

3 Sbory muzske (3 Male-Voice Choruses), JW IV/19

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

Parting - 2:48
The Dove - 2:33
The Jealous Man - 6:06

Laska Opravdiva (True Love), JW IV/8

(more info)

Composed by: Leos Janacek
Conducted by: Lubomir Mati
Recording date: 31 Aug - 3 Sep 1995 and 22-24 Mar 1996

True Love - 2:29

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Flash 9 required. Click to download.

Composer(s):
Anonymous; Janacek, Leos

Conductor(s):
Mati, Lubomir

Label: Naxos Classics
UPC: 730099462327
Item Number: 8553623
Release Date: Jul 1, 2001