This is a very welcome release. The Eternal Gospel is Janácek’s major pre-Glagolitic Mass choral work (along with the cantata Amarus), and we have badly needed a good new recording. The visionary text brings forth some of the composer’s most ecstatic writing, recalling the more rapturous moments of Kat’a Kabanova (even though this music dates from about a decade earlier). Ilan Volkov leads a gripping performance, well sung by the choir, only slightly let down by two less-than-stellar vocal soloists. Tenor Adrian Thompson does what he can with Janácek’s typically high tessitura, but soprano Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, as the angel, lacks the necessary purity and sweetness of tone, though she’s never less than professional. Still, it’s great to have this music easily available, well played, and beautifully recorded.
The couplings add considerably to the disc’s attraction. Volkov’s readings of The Ballad of Blaník and The Fiddler’s Child have plenty of guts along with the sort of no-nonsense directness of expression that Janácek’s music ideally requires. I also prefer this colorful rendition of Smolka and Zahrádka’s suite from The Excursions of Mr. Broucek to Belohlávek’s less emphatic, less satisfyingly engineered Supraphon recording. If you haven’t heard this sensitively-made arrangement of orchestral excerpts from Janácek’s two one-act comedies, then you have been missing a treat. The music is simply wonderful, and perhaps will generate some interest in the quirky original operas themselves. Charles Mackerras badly wants to record them. Is anyone listening? Meanwhile, buy this, and enjoy.
