If you love Janácek you will surely be enticed at the prospect of hearing the Sinfonietta in opulent SACD surround-sound, and Jonathan Nott has some interesting things to say about this repertoire, particularly in terms of texture and balance. For example, his legato phrasing in the fourth movement puts an interesting, lyrical slant on a short movement that sometimes seems lost among its more imposing brethren. The finale also builds effectively to the return of the opening fanfares–but Nott lets the team down in the final pages. Janácek asks for an unvarying fortissimo (Kubelik on DG gives it to him), and many conductors cut back the last four chords a bit to emphasize the final entry of the massed trumpets, making a big crescendo in the final bar. Nott, however, reduces the volume to a tepid mezzo-forte, giving the decorative trills in strings and winds solo prominence, and the result really makes a wet noodle out of this brazen, celebratory conclusion.
The suite from The Cunning Little Vixen (Jílek’s selection of interludes from the whole opera, and not Talich’s arrangement of Act 1 without the voices) goes beautifully. Once again Nott shows his sensitivity in areas such as transitions between sections, uniting the entire work very effectively and finding ways to preserve a continuity that Jílek obviously didn’t pay much attention to in making his selection of excerpts.
Taras Bulba, though, is a big disappointment, particularly in the first two movements. The opening love music is aptly dreamy and romantic, but the battle has little impact or aggression (the trombones are much too nice). Similarly, the central Death of Ostap lacks ferocity, and its pervasive lightness of texture completely misses the music’s emotional point. Although the Bamberg orchestra plays very well technically, much of the music’s character, its roughness and edge, falls by the wayside. I wish I could recommend this release with more enthusiasm. There’s a good bit of talent and intelligence on offer from Nott & Co., but it doesn’t do sufficient justice to Janácek’s originality and idiom.
