Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Jump to content
Sign up to our newsletters
Independent
More
Voices
Best
TV

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in

Swipe for next article

Classical reviews: Janacek and Sturm und Drang

The London Symphony Orchestra's Janacek is a work of intense theatricality, while Ida Ranslov's rendition of Sturm und Drang is top-notch. By Michael Church

Czech composer Leos Janacek
Czech composer Leos Janacek
Czech composer Leos Janacek (1854-1928)
Czech composer Leos Janacek (1854-1928)
Janacek: The Cunning Little Vixen
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle
LSO 0850

★★★★★

Last summer Simon Rattle and the LSO presented a rousing account of this opera at the Barbican in a semi-staging by Peter Sellars, and here is the resulting recording. For Rattle this astringently beautiful work has a profound significance: he played the celeste in a student production and says it was the work which made him want to become an opera conductor. Moreover, although there is nothing mawkish about the shooting of the heroine – the cycle of the seasons rolls on imperturbably – he observes that it moves him to tears more readily than does any other work. For this production he had the services of a superb cast led by Gerald Finley as the Forester and Lucy Crowe as the vixen Sharp Ears, and from the delicately suggestive opening, led by woodwind and brass, it holds the listener – well, this one at least – in thrall throughout. This is a work of intense theatricality which cries out to be seen as well as heard, but this double disc is the next best thing.
 
Sturm und Drang Volume 2
Music by Haydn, Gluck, Vanhal, Myslivecek, and JC Bach
Ida Ranslov, mezzo-soprano, and the Mozartists conducted by Ian Page
Signum Classics SIGCD636

★★★★

These three turbulent minor-key symphonies alternating with sacred and operatic arias – all composed between 1765 and 1770 – constitute the second volume in a seven-CD set devoted to the movement which supplies their title. Sturm und Drang – “storm and stress” – was the label attached to the cultural movement which was a reaction to the surface charm and poised gentility of the music of the Enlightenment. It all makes an interesting and unusual sidelight on musical history, and the performers - all seasoned period-instrumentalists, and the soloist, a fine exponent of the Baroque – are top-notch.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in