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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.
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