Nigel Simeone, IRR, March 2013
IRR, March 2013
This is a fascinating disc and one that I recommend warmly to anybody with a serious interest in Janáček and folk music. In 1902 František Bartoš and Janáček published a monumental collection of Moravian folk songs (Národní písně moravské nově nasbírané – (‚Moravian folksongs newly collected‘). The sheer scope of this gigantic undertaking is extraordinary – over 2,000 tunes on nearly 1,200 pages – but one of its more unusual features is the inclusion of some song and dance tunes in full score – not only of the tune but also a very detailed transcription of the accompaniment.
I mention this as a preamble to discussing ‚Black Soil‘ because what the compilers of this highly original collection have done is to produce arrangements, for voices and an ensemble including a small group including strings, cimbalom and harmonium, that reflect traditional folk instrumentations – of pieces that were directly inspired by that same folk music. Principal among these is the collection published collectively as 26 Folk Ballads, comprising four works: the Folk Nocturnes of 1906, the Six folksongs sung by Eva Gabel of 1909, Five folksongs for male voices and piano or harmonium from 1912, and the Songs of Detva – Brigand Ballads of 1916. Originally Janáček intended this to be a collection of 20 songs – without the Eva Gabel set – and it is those 20 that form the backbone of ‚Black Soil‘ – in a different order from any envisaged by Janáček. In addition, the set includes three pieces from On the Overgrown Path sounding as you are unlikely to have heard them before: I won't spoil the surprise.
Those Janáček enthusiasts who know the Folk Ballads are usually extremely enthusiastic about them: they are haunting, beautiful and often exciting arrangements that deserve to be far better known. All 26 have been recorded in Janáček's original versions on a fine Supraphon disc made in 1994 (Supraphon 11 2225–2 231), but that's not strictly a comparable recording, since the vocal and instrumental ensemble on ‚Black Soil‘ is so different – but, in my view, it's a captivating and thoroughly convincing alternative. The accompaniments are nicely varied and the performances are superb: none of Janáček's notes is changed, the musical idiom is very well captured – movingly so in some of the songs – and the quality of the voices is just right, with a minimum of vibrato, but without anything unduly ‚folksy‘. My own favourite of the sets of Ballads is the gorgeous Folk Nocturnes. In this newly arranged guise these wonderful songs, ravishing two-part folk polyphony, sung by women at twilight at Makov, near Velké Rovné (in present-day Slovakia, near the Moravian border), come across marvellously, but really the whole disc is bewitching.
Notes and text are printed in Czech and English translations and the presentation is excellent, as is the recorded sound. This is a most imaginative project, brilliantly realized.
Nigel Simeone, International Record Review, March 2013
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