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SUPER AUDIO CD JANÁCˇ EK ORCHESTRAL WORKS, VOL. 1 Suite from ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’ Sinfonietta Capriccio Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra EDWARD GARDNER Brno, 1926 Leoš Janáček, with his dog, Čipera, at his house in © T.P. / Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library Leoš Janáček (1854 – 1928) Orchestral Works, Volume 1 Sinfonietta, JW VI / 18 (1926) 23:20 for Orchestra 1 I Allegretto – Allegro – Maestoso 2:07 2 II Andante – Allegretto – Meno mosso – Più mosso – Meno mosso – Più mosso – Più mosso – Maestoso – Più mosso – Maestoso – Tempo I – Allegretto 6:10 3 III Moderato – Con moto – Tempo I – Più mosso – L’istesso tempo – Prestissimo – [Con moto] – Tempo I. Moderato – Più mosso – Meno 5:16 4 IV Allegretto – Adagio – Presto – Adagio – Presto – Meno mosso – Andante – Presto – Prestissimo 3:00 5 V Allegro – Meno mosso – Più mosso – Maestoso – Tempo I – Allegretto – Allegro – Maestoso – Adagio 6:35 3 Capriccio, JW VII / 12 (1926)* 20:08 for piano left hand, flute / piccolo, two trumpets, three trombones, and tenor tuba Ingela Øien flute Gary Peterson trumpet Jon Behncke trumpet Christopher Dudley trombone Øyvind Hage trombone Kjell Erik Husom bass trombone Hans Andreas Kjølberg tenor tuba 6 I Allegro – Vivace – Maestoso – Tempo I – Meno mosso – Presto – Tempo I 4:59 7 II Adagio – Vivo – Tempo I – Vivo, un poco più mosso – Più mosso – Tempo I – Tempo I (Più mosso) – Tempo I – Meno mosso – [Tempo I] – Con moto – Vivo – Tempo I 5:11 8 III Allegretto – Allegro – Allegretto – Tempo I – [Meno] – Meno mosso 3:34 9 IV Andante – [ ] – Tempo I – Maestoso, vivo – Moderato – Presto – Adagio – Maestoso – Prestissimo – Tempo I – Meno mosso – Allegro – Grave 6:10 4 Suite from ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’, JW I / 9 (1922 – 24; suite finally revised 2008) 20:14 for Orchestra Original version prepared by Václav Talich (1883 – 1961), expanded, and with original orchestration restored, by Sir Charles Mackerras (1925 – 2010) 10 I The forest. Andante – [ ] – Tempo I – Allegro – Tempo di Walzer – The Gamekeeper catches the Vixen. Meno mosso – Più mosso – Allegro – Più mosso – Meno mosso – Tempo I – 9:50 11 II The Vixen at the Gamekeeper’s farmyard. Andante – Presto – Allegro – Tempo I – The Vixen dreams. Moderato – Adagio – Un poco più mosso – The Vixen escapes. Allegro – Un poco più mosso – Più mosso – Più mosso – Presto 10:23 TT 64:05 Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano* Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Melina Mandozzi leader Edward Gardner 5 Jean-Efflam Bavouzet © Benjamin Ealovega Photography Janáček: Orchestral Works, Volume 1 Suite from ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’, JW I / 9 Kabanová into German, found Janáček’s new As a composer, the Moravian Leoš Janáček opera ‘very strange’. The German première (1854 – 1928) was a late starter and was took place at a disappointingly humble venue, already sixty-two when he finally achieved in Mainz (Janáček did not bother to attend), his breakthrough in Prague with his third where it was soon taken off, and Emil Hertzka, opera, Jenůfa, JW I / 4, in 1916. But when head of Universal Edition, concluded that the the Viennese publisher Universal Edition work would not establish itself on German took him up and promoted his operas his stages. What was universally liked, however, fame began to spread abroad. Berlin was were the orchestral interludes and on 9 March the arbiter of German taste and after a 1927 Hertzka wrote to Janáček, suggesting that legendary production of Jenůfa there in 1924, something might be made of them – a suite conducted by Erich Kleiber, Janáček seemed perhaps? This idea went down badly with the unstoppable in the German-speaking world: a composer; the interludes were ‘too short’, he fine Kát’a Kabanová, JW I / 8 followed in Berlin retorted (undoubtedly miffed at the dismissal two years later, with Schoenberg and other of his highly original opera). But after his death local worthies in the audience. Janáček’s in 1928 Universal Edition pursued the idea with next opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, JW I / 9, the leading Czech conductor of his generation, one might have thought, would have had no Václav Talich (1883 – 1961), who presided over problems in charming foreign audiences, and a much praised production of the opera in indeed at its showing at the Prague Festival Prague in 1937. Like so many others at the time, of the International Society for Contemporary Talich thought that Janáček’s orchestration Music in 1925 it won foreign admirers as could do with a bit of smartening up, so the diverse as Vaughan Williams and the French suite which he extracted was based not on writer Romain Rolland. Janáček’s score but on its re-orchestration, The German-speaking world, however, undertaken, at Talich’s request, by the was not too sure. Max Brod, who had conductor František Škvor (1898 – 1970) and enthusiastically translated Jenůfa and Kát’a the composer Jaroslav Řídký (1897 – 1956). 7 Janáček’s opera, based on a tale published the Gamekeeper’s grandson and his friend in 1920 in the local Brno newspaper Lidové and the Vixen’s response (which results in noviny with the 200 witty drawings that the Vixen being tied up). It then links into the had inspired it, tells the life story of a vixen, Vixen’s dream of liberation, an orchestral captured by a gamekeeper in the opening interlude containing some of the most scene, and her life in his farmyard until ecstatic music that Janáček ever wrote, and she breaks free at the end of the first act. then goes straight into the final farmyard She goes on to mate and to raise a litter, scene. Although the suite contains much and eventually to die at the hands of a music which in the opera is purely orchestral, poacher. The Vixen suite is based entirely there are also sections that in the opera on the music of Act I, however, and is thus include voice parts, which are here omitted. essentially a joyous trajectory tracing the Only occasionally, for instance in the final Vixen’s capture (the opening scene after a farmyard scene, do instruments need to prelude evoking the forest and its animal life), substitute for them. her confined life with the Gamekeeper, her Sir Charles Mackerras (1925 – 2010) dream of liberation, and finally her escape: was renowned for restoring the original an exuberant, scherzando finale in which, orchestration to Janáček’s operas, and having tricked the farmyard hens into coming in taking over the suite by Talich, his within killing range, she herself manages to old conducting teacher in Prague, he bite through her leash and flees from the irate similarly stripped away all the additional Gamekeeper and his wife into the forest. re-orchestration and let Janáček’s original The suite falls into two movements. The orchestra speak for itself. He also extended first reproduces all the music of the opening the second movement by including more prelude (apart from a short section for the music from the end of the prelude to make a Gamekeeper’s opening words) and the neater and more logical join to the ‘liberation’ scene in the forest in which the Gamekeeper music (altogether only about six minutes of catches the Vixen. The second movement music from Act I are omitted in Mackerras’s begins with the prelude to the second scene version). Mackerras had hoped to be able to (at the Gamekeeper’s farmyard), omits the give the première of his final version (which dialogue sections between the Vixen and included a few minor revisions), but death the Dog, and the tormenting of the Vixen by intervened and instead it was first performed 8 at his memorial concert, in November 2010, Zahrádka (curator of the Janáček Archive in by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Brno), it is now known that this event took Alexander Briger. place on Friday evening, 27 June 1924, a few hours after Janáček had arrived by train from Sinfonietta, JW VI / 18 Prague, and that the military band was that of A clue to the character of Janáček’s the Czechoslovak Infantry Regiment No. 11, Sinfonietta, JW VI / 18 is given by its original conducted by František Palacký. It was title: ‘Military Sinfonietta’. Janáček called it probably Palacký’s Equestrian March that this on his autograph score and it was billed Janáček heard, in which the four players of the as such at all early Czech performances trumpet fanfares always would stand up to apart from the première. ‘Military’ explains play their solos. the nature and extraordinary scoring of the Two years after this event Janáček first movement with its nine trumpets, two completed a five-movement orchestral work tenor tubas, two bass trumpets, and timpani. which, he told Kamila, went back to the Písek Its origins go back to a visit that Janáček paid fanfares and which, it used to be thought, to the Bohemian town of Písek where, in the Janáček had begun by composing the company of his friend Kamila Stösslová and opening fanfares for brass and percussion. a local musician, Cyril Vymetal, he attended a Yet again Zahrádka has uncovered interesting concert given in the park by a military band. information: a much more curious origin in According to Vymetal’s reminiscences, the the form of a sketch for three horns, three first item was a ‘fanfare march’ with four trumpets, five trombones, timpani, and – musicians standing on a raised platform, improbably – harp, written on large sheets. playing special trumpets decorated with Later, however, Janáček cut these sheets flags and emblems of the Czechoslovak into small ones and on the back of them Republic to the accompaniment of a military (he was economical with paper) sketched band. Janáček was much taken by it: ‘It’s the familiar motifs of the first movement of special, it sounds lovely’, he is reported to the Sinfonietta.