Janacek: Glagolitic Mass

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra bring together three works that define the ‘Czech sound’, by composers who drew their material from Czech history, legends and landscapes – Dvoak and Janacek.

Janacek’s Ballad of Blanik and Dvorak’s Golden Spinning Wheel are both symphonic poems that take Czech legends as their inspiration – the first using the tale of Wenceslas as a vehicle to celebrate the peaceful regeneration of Czechoslovakia as an independent nation after World War I; the second a rather gruesome tale of greed, murder and magic.

In the words of the writer Milan Kundera, Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass is ‘more an orgy than a mass’ – perhaps appropriately for its composer, who despite being a well-known atheist, wrote a work that largely followed the traditional Catholic Mass structure. Including a wildly energetic section for solo organ, it takes the listener on an exhilarating journey.