If I Could Choose Only One Work By...Janáček
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- čas přidán 24. 08. 2024
- It Would Have To Be...The Cunning Little Vixen
The List So Far...
1. Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Ballet)
2. Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
3. Schubert: String Quintet in C major
4. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
5. Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
6. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
7. Debussy: Preludes for Piano (Books 1 & 2)
8: Handel: Saul
9. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
10. Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G major
11. Vaughan Williams: Job
12. Bach: Goldberg Variations
13. R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
14. Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
15. Haydn: “Paris” Symphonies (Nos. 82-87)
16. Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
17. Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor
18. Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor
19. Chopin: Preludes
20. Verdi: Rigoletto
21. Roussel: Symphony No. 2
22. Copland: Appalachian Spring (complete original ballet)
23. Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 and 2
24. Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
25. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2
26. Rimsky-Korsakov: Opera Suites (Scottish National Orchestra/Järvi) Chandos
27. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire
28. Smetana: Ma Vlást
29. Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
30. Bizet: Carmen
31. Elgar: In the South
32. Sullivan: The Mikado
33. Dvořák: Symphony No. 8; Cello Concerto (Piatigorsky/Munch/Boston Symphony) RCA
34. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies
35. Monteverdi: Orfeo
36. Scarlatti: Sonatas
37. Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op. 17
38. Berg: Wozzeck
39. Hermann: Psycho (film score)
40. Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini
41. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
42. Holst: Suites for Military Band
43. Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex
44. Respighi: Three Botticelli Pictures
45. Sibelius: Symphony No. 5; Pohjola’s Daughter (Bernstein, New York Philharmonic) Sony
46. Britten: The Turn of the Screw
47. Borodin: String Quartet No. 2
I knew that would be the most difficult pick, because pretty much every single work Janáček composed after he was 60 (!) is a masterpiece and incredibly original.
A fine choice, but I have to take the Sinfonietta, with all that exciting brass blaring away.
Janáček was born to write this opera.
The Cunning Little Vixen is one of the most deeply moving works of art I know. I'm overjoyed that others appreciate it as well
The Cunning Little Vixen could be one the closest things to a "furry" opera out there. Anyway, good choice, Dave. And I think Sir Charles Mackerras probably made the finest recording of it.
I would have picked Taras Bulba because 1; I have yet to listen to any of his operas other than some of the suites, and 2; because I feel Taras Bulba in 20 some minutes and three movements encapsulates everything I love about Janacek’s music; passionate, quirky, amazing rhythms……..
Still waiting for Samuel Barber. I pick his Three Essays for Orchestra, which cover roughly his entire career, and illustrates his brilliance at orchestration.
Not sure if there are recordings with all three of them on one disc.
Agree with every word. The most moving, bitter-sweet depiction of the cycle of life in all of music. The gamekeeper's closing lines always have me in bits, like Bernstein's 'Some other time' at the end of 'On the Town'. And Janacek's master stroke, the frog's final snippet................................. he really had a special gift for musical drama.
I couldn't come up with a choice, because I don't know enough of Janacek's output, so I am surprised and thrilled to see you choose my own personal favorite. It was my introduction to the composer, and I still vividly recall my reaction, after 40 years, to the opening bars. It was both disorienting and uniquely charming. But until today it hadn't occurred to me the uniqueness of having the lead soprano shot and turned into a muff! I guffawed.
My only experience thus far of this opera has been through the recording of the suite by Vaclav Neumann and SWF orchestra. It is a fantastic album which also contains the sinfonietta and the violin concerto. The suite completely caught me off guard when I heard it first as I came to the album off the back of daves recommendation of the sinfonietta. The sheer beauty of the music is incredible.
A difficult choice but a good one. Not only a great opera but also a very good orchestral suite extracted from it to reach a different audience. And indeed an unusual subject.
I should have known better. I thought you'd pick the Sinfonietta. Hooray for Vixen! Yes, probably my favorite as well. Although I'm especially fond of Makropoulos, IMO Janáček's best script. Okay. Libretto. And Jenufa is wonderful as is Katya. I've been lucky enough to see live performances of Vixen, Katya, and Makropoulos thanks to the NYC Opera touring LA. I love everything I've ever head of LJ's, and have worked to get as much as possible on recording and DVD. BTW, you sing the little foxes' song and the wedding tune quite recognizably. In college (this was 1970) I used Harašta's song as an theater workshop piece. The professor scolded me for singing in Czech.
Yes, it would have to be the Cunning Little Vixen, as great as his other mature operas are. Not only does it have wonderful vocal roles, but, as you said, it also has such an amazing orchestral score! Otherwise, I’d nominate the Glagolitic Mass because it also is typical of Janacek at his best.
I admire all the singers in Janáček's operas for learning such long Czech texts - in addition to extremely demanding tunes, it is another challenge to pronounce everything correctly.
I don't usually buy opera recordings, but I jumped at the opportunity to buy a blu-ray recording of The Cunning Little Vixen by the Opera National de Paris with Dennis Russell Davies conducting. I don't know if there is an audio-only version, but I like seeing the staged opera when listening to the music. My first exposure to the opera was a broadcast long ago on PBS.
Looking ahead to FRANCK: If I’m not mistaken, he wrote more chamber music than anything else, except organ music. I propose a disc: Le temps retrouve, which is the Eliot Quartet playing brilliantly the string quartet and (with guest) piano quintet. So you get circular form that is distinctively Franckian (Franckesque?) and one 3-movement and one 4-movement work, and to my amateur ear some of the best chamber music in the repertoire. (In case anyone cares, the disc is called Time Regained after the last volume in Marcel Proust’s novel A la recherche du temps perdu because Proust in 1916 hired a quartet to play the Franck quartet in his Paris apartment.)
well it's my favourite work by any composer so I'm glad we see eye to eye on this one! And you have one or two other slightly more offbeat choices I would heartily commend as well such as Brahms 2nd sextet or Prokofiev's 2nd piano concerto (or even Shosty 4 is by no means a bad choice)
As a beginner classical listener, I struggled at first with this composer until I started to notice and appreciate a certain style with his instrumental pieces w/ Mladi, Capriccio and Concertino being the three I would group together and Suite for String Orchestra also had similar motifs repeating. If I had to save one of his instrumental works, it would be Mladi (Youth) for wind sextant. This was one of his later works and it seems to be the best example of that almost call and response repeating segments that he was working on through out his later works. One day, I might get up the courage to listen to his vocal works but today is not the day - lol.
You are not a "beginning classical listener." From your comments, you have listened to as much as any of us, and in a remarkably short period of time.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Yes, I have listened to at least 500 individual works since I started this journey but I started with your Essential Beginners series which purposefully covered many different kinds of classical music. Now I am using this series to do a deep dive on composers. I have only listened to a handful of compositions more than a few times so 90% of the time I am listening to something for the first time. Also, I am at that stage now where it is more clear to me what I do not enjoy listening to than what I like which can be very limiting if I just write off whole chunks of music without giving it a chance. I do not think I will move from beginner to knowledgeable listener or ever classical music lover until I start listening to the music just for the pleasure of enjoying pieces I love instead of just hearing them once as part of a self imposed music appreciation/learning task that I have set myself on. Maybe listening to so much new music at once is a determinant but going from working full-time to being a caregiver has given me way to much free time and I rather spend it learning about music than being on my phone or listening to some podcast.
@@rhonda8900 Fair enough, but do take the time to listen to the works you enjoy more often. You will hear so many new things once you know them really well. That's also part of the fun.
For now, I only have four recordings of the opera. And while I agree that the version by Charles Mackerras is probably the most perfect of them, I love both recordings by Václav Neumann as well... and the recording of 1980s (currently unavailable) even more because there were the singers I remember from the theatre performances. FYI, a recording sung in English exists, conducted by Simon Rattle... and IMHO English does not work well, most of the time, the exception, IMHO again, being the forester's grieving in act 3 sung by Thomas Allen.
Yes, it was based just on a story published as a series in a newspaper... but it was brilliant (subsequently published as a wonderful little book), used very rich language and was splendidly illustrated by Stanislav Lolek.
Viren or Katja? Katja or Vixen? I cannot decide. Maybe Osud (Fate)?!
Janacek was said to be a "roaring atheist." (My kinda guy, right?)
So at age 72 he composes a Mass. What would you expect?
There's only one possible choice. Nothing else like it, nothing comes close.
"Glagolitic" refers to Old Church Slavonic. The alphabet and the script. Bizarre, like the music.
If you ever get around to Delius, my vote would be for (are you ready?) Sea Drift. That should certainly impress any evil god.
Or put him to sleep.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Who's to say!
How can you forget about the Glagolitic Mass, or the Sinfonietta or Taras Bulba or the two wonderful string quartets? OK, sorry if I've blotted my copybook
Thanks again, Dave, for another great recommendation!
I had never heard this opera before, but I just listened to the Mackerras/Popp recording of it and am now a huge fan of it!
I have a question, though. I found a Czech-English libretto for it on-line, but I hard time following it while I listened. Part of the reason, I think, is that it is often difficult to distinguish one animal voice from another. I know that Janacek allowed individual singers to sing more than one part during a performance, but at times it seemed that what was being sung diverged from what was written in the libretto.
Is it just me or could this be the case? (I've followed many libretti for Italian, German, and French operas and never had any trouble.).
I really don't know. I never had an issue with the libretto of this particular performance.
OK, thanks all the same. I plan to listen to this work repeatedly, so I'm sure I'll figure it out sooner or later.
By the way, I love your channel! I'm really learning a lot from it.
Dave, been having trouble posting my comment (disappears seconds after posting). So if you see multiple copies of the same message, then I apologize. Unless Cancrizans doesn't like Campra....