Vitězslav Novák (1870-1949)
Piano Concerto in E minor (1895)
Suite from Signora Gioventú, Op.58 (1928) prepared by Łukasz Borowicz
Suite from Nikotina (1929) arr. Václav Talich
Oliver Treindl (piano)
Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava/Łukasz Borowicz
rec. 19-23 June 2023, Kino Vesmír, Ostrava
cpo 555 359-2 [64]

Back in 2020 Supraphon released a disc of Vitězslav Novák’s youthful Piano Concerto played by Jan Bartoš with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jakub Hrůša, coupling it with the solo piano At Dusk, and the orchestral Toman and the Wood Nymph, Op.40 which remains one of his most popular and most-recorded works. Three years later, but only released now, comes CPO’s own version of the Concerto played by the ubiquitous Oliver Treindl with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava under Łukasz Borowicz. It’s been imaginatively coupled with suites from two ballet pantomimes, which were composed much later than the Concerto.

I won’t reprise what I wrote about the concerto’s structure in my previous review but will add that it’s hard to adjudicate between two such fine performances. I will add, however, that the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava has recently vacated its hall, which is being renovated, and for this disc  were recorded in the Kino Vesmír in the city – a large cinema. As a consequence, the recording quality is a little diffuse and the cinematic acoustic exacerbates the impression of a slight lack of orchestral focus. This is probably not a corporate failing, more a reflection of the acoustic. Triendl meanwhile plays with his accustomed competence and makes for an unfailingly intelligent guide but if I was backed against a wall I would prefer Jan Bartoš’s more vibrantly grand seigneurial swagger and his more bass-orientated sonority. Treindl is a touch lighter-toned and rather jerkier in his approach. Still, Treindl’s orchestral support is communicative and appropriately exuberant, and you certainly won’t feel short-changed by this recording.   

Conductor Łukasz Borowicz has prepared his own suite from Signora Gioventú, a sixteen-minute distillation of its essence that works very nicely in highlighting its salient characterization and musical diversity. Formally it’s constructed in a prologue and seven scenes but Borowicz has broken it into four scenes – Nos.1, 3, 4 and 6 – which allows him to foreground the carnivalesque elements of the vivacious dance in the third scene, and its contrast with the slow affectionate waltz in the ensuing one – the one that generates an increasingly feverish intensity, a kind of totentanz as the intoxicated law clerk succumbs to an infatuated death. Both this plot and that of Nikotina were based on stories by the Czech writer Svatopluk Čech and in the latter case Borowicz performs the suite arranged by Václav Talich. It has a humorous, typically bizarre scenario as one might expect of the author of The Excursions of Mr Brouček and Talich’s work usefully compacts its confident, colourful vitality. Its ceremonial Spanishry – La Paloma prominently – sits nicely next to its more dapper elements.

With the same caveats as to the recorded sound, I’d happily recommend these two suites if you are unable to locate the standard recordings of both complete ballets, by the Brno State Philharmonic under that great Novák and Janáček conductor, František Jílek.

Jonathan Woolf

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