This admirable collection contains good to excellent performances of just about all the orchestral music that Janácek wrote. The only major missing items, aside from opera suites assembled by third parties, are the Lachian Dances and the tone poem The Ballad of Blaník. As compensation, Chandos offers the two early works for string orchestra–Idyll, and the Suite for Strings–both admirably performed and recorded. As for the big items, the Sinfonietta is well played by the orchestra that knows it best, though the performance isn’t the most dynamic around. Taras Bulba, on the other hand, is splendid, and so are all of the other items, including a lovely Cunning Little Vixen Suite and the very rarely heard tone poem The Fiddler’s Child. At mid-price, you can’t go wrong here.
