Ilan Volkov: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra - Jana?ek: Orchestral Music

The years either side of the First World War were a time of renaissance for the Czech nation�and at the heart of this rebirth was the music of Leo� Jan�?ek. The Fiddler�s Child, a ballad for solo violin (Elizabeth Layton in this exciting new recording) and orchestra, tells a harrowing tale of supernatural malfaisance as a parable for the struggles of a perennially oppressed nation.Such a tone of double meaning is also to be found in The Eternal Gospel: overt religiosity becomes, for Jan�?ek, an expression of the contemporary world�s need for reconciliation�the work received its premiere late in 1917. Similarly The Ballad of Blan�k, dating from a couple of years later, adapts traditional folk material into an orchestral �miniature epic� depicting the transformation of swords into ploughshares amid a scene of unabashed pastoral tranquillity.Jan�?ek�s two �Excursion of Mr Brou?ek� operas�the �excursions� in question being �to the moon� and �to the fifteenth century��concern themselves with traditional tales of medievalist escapism. Dedicated to �the liberator of the Czech nation� (Tom� Masaryk, the country�s president in the years following its separation from the Austro�Hungarian empire), this is music of an irrepressible vivacity and optimism; the suite recorded here (prepared after the composer�s death) draws together the considerable quantity of purely orchestral music from the operas�including some of Jan�?ek�s original drafts.The broad sweep of these orchestral works is given full flight in luxurious performances from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Ilan Volkov.Czechoslovakia�s independence was to be short-lived, but Jan�?ek�s aspirational music can stand today as a symbol of what might have been.