Description
Moravian Teachers Choir — Janáček: Choruses for Male Voices, Naxos (Audio CD)
Vadonatúj! Gyári csomagolásban! Fóliázott! Mint a képen! Vásároljon bizalommal! Foliaban!
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Product Details
- UPC: 730099462327
- Label: Naxos
- Composer: Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
- Performers: Moravian Teachers Choir, conducted by Lubomír Máti (with Dagmar Bundžová, soprano, and Karel Průša, bass, on track 17)
- Catalogue Number: 8.553623
- Release Year: 2001
- Genre: Classical — Choral (Male-Voice Chorus)
- Country of Producing: European Union (EU)
Product Features
- Format: Audio CD, factory sealed
- Recording: DDD (fully digital)
- Playing Time: 79:12
- Recorded 31 August–3 September 1995 and 22–24 March 1996 in the Minorite Church, Uničov
- Cover Image: Coal Market in Prague by Antonín Slavíček (1870–1910)
Overview
Opera tends to eat all the attention when people talk about Janáček, but choral writing for unaccompanied male voices was the one non-operatic form he kept coming back to across his whole career — largely because the Moravian Teachers Choir, the same ensemble performing here, formed in 1903 and gave him a standing outlet for it. This disc traces that arc from his earliest surviving piece, the folk-rooted Ploughing (Oráni), through to The 70,000, a dense, polyphonically demanding setting about a real Silesian miners' revolt.
What makes the collection worth sitting with is the range packed into one form. Janáček moves from plain folk-song settings to settings that verge on operatic drama — Kantor Halfar and Maryčka Magdonova both carry real narrative weight, closer to compressed ballads than typical part-song fare, while The Czech Legion and The 70,000 lean into the political and historical material Janáček returned to as Czech national identity sharpened around him.
The Moravian Teachers Choir under Lubomír Máti brings the same regional lineage to the performance that gave Janáček the choir in the first place — this is Moravian music sung by the choir tradition it was written for, recorded in a Moravian church.
Interesting Facts
- The formation of the Moravian Teachers Choir in 1903 directly encouraged Janáček to keep writing for unaccompanied male chorus — outside opera, it's the one genre he worked in consistently for the rest of his life.
- Ploughing (Oráni) is considered Janáček's earliest known composition, making this disc a rare chance to hear the very start of his output alongside far more mature, complex later works.
- The 70,000 sets a text about the 1894 uprising of Silesian miners, and its polyphonic complexity marks a sharp departure from the simpler folk-song choruses elsewhere on the disc.
- The Wandering Madman adds solo voices to the male chorus texture — soprano Dagmar Bundžová and bass Karel Průša join for that one track only, breaking the otherwise unaccompanied format.
- The recordings were made across two sessions eight months apart (August–September 1995 and March 1996), both in the Minorite Church in Uničov, under music director and sound engineer Václav Zamazal.
Track Listing
1–4. Čtyři lidové mužské sbory (Four Folk Male-Voice Choruses) — 11:06 5–8. Čtverice mužských sborů (Four Male-Voice Choruses) — 10:04 9–12. Čtvero mužských sborů moravských (Four Moravian Male-Voice Choruses) — 11:11
- Kantor Halfar (Teacher Halfar) — 4:34
- Maryčka Magdonova — 8:31
- Sedmdesát tisíc (Seventy Thousand) — 6:02
- Česká legie (The Czech Legion) — 8:37
- Potulný šílenec (The Wandering Madman)* — 5:15 18–20. Tři mužké sbory (Three Male-Voice Choruses) — 11:24
- Láska opravdivá (True Love) — 2:28
with Dagmar Bundžová (soprano) and Karel Průša (bass)
Publishers
Released by Naxos, catalogue 8.553623, © & ℗ 2001 HNH International Ltd.
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