AND ONE TO AVOID…

Václav Talich knew Janáωek personally, and conducted Taras Bulba’s Prague premiere. The composer praised his ‘exemplary interpretation’, and you can still sense Talich’s empathy for the music in the recording he made with the Czech Philharmonic 30 years later. But the sound is dry, constricted mono, and it seems perverse to prefer it when so many modern versions offer greater amplitude and visceral insight into Janáωek’s pungent orchestration.