Janáček reviews

Poulenc’s delightful and often moving Mass in G sprang from a mid-life reconversion to the faith of his youth. The prevalent mood is one of celebration which St John’s Choir captures admirably; there is also a lively engagement with the contrasts which make the Gloria so appealing. Poulenc’s tendency to pair phrases can, in the wrong hands, lead to a slightly monotonous effect, but with careful shading, as is the case here with Andrew Nethsingha, the results add significantly to the music’s sense of direction. 

Nervous systems go haywire when confronted with committed performances of Janácek’s two quartets. Imagine the impact, then, when both are carefully and selectively arranged for string orchestra, as they have been here by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra’s inspirational artistic director Terje Tønnesen, and when the first can also be heard broken up with harrowing readings from the Tolstoy novella which inspired it, The Kreutzer Sonata.

The Wihan Quartet is one of the most experienced and admired of chamber ensembles. The present recording offers three classics from the Czech repertoire and also furnishes evidence of the development of the ensemble with the recent appointment of a new viola player, Jakub Cepicky.

Nothing about the music Janáček composed in his last decade is conventional: autobiographical string quartets, operas on subjects that fly in the face of reason yet succeed magnificently, and a setting of the mass that stands convention on its head. Incandescent, profoundly human and intoxicating in its celebration of the world of nature and the divine, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass is demanding of performers and requires special treatment at every turn.