SO, WHERE NEXT…?
We suggest works to explore after Janáωek’s Taras Bulba
Janáωek The Fiddler’s Child
The Fiddler’s Child was composed two years before Taras Bulba, and the two works share noticeable similarities – not least the tender-yet-mournful melodies played by the oboe, and urgent, forceful interjections from the strings, seemingly hell-bent on interrupting the serene flow of the music to warn us that all is not well. And what a dark tale this ten-minute ‘Ballad’ for solo violin and orchestra does indeed tell us. The destitute fiddler of the title plays fondly to his ill child, conjuring up images of a happier life. But both fiddler and, then, his child die, while a sinister four-note motif, repeated throughout, depicts the evils of the world around them.
Recommended recording: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/ Ilan Volkov Hyperion CDA67517
Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegel
If Janáωek’s Taras Bulba presents a sense of doom from the outset, Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche – to give it its full title – is a tale of jolly japes that comes to a horribly sticky end. Composed in 1895, Till Eulenspiegel depicts the antics of the title character as he hares around the countryside winding people up. Alas, the victims of his japery lose their patience, and Till is hanged for blasphemy. The clarinet is the key instrument here. As well as introducing the running motif that signifies Till’s pranks, it also squeals excruciatingly at his execution – Janáωek would later use exactly the same device to portray the death of Ostap in Taras Bulba.
Recommended recording: Berlin Philharmonic/herbert von Karajan Deutsche Grammophon 447 4412
Foerster Cyrano de Bergerac
Premiered in Prague in 1905, this symphonic poem is the Czech composer JB Foerster’s take on Edmond Rostand’s famous story of a self-deprecating writer who helps his friend to woo the woman he himself loves. Foerster shows us the story from the point of view of Cyrano, from his first interaction with the sweet and beautiful Roxanne – portrayed by a hopeful theme played by the flutes – to a bitter central scherzo in which he mocks himself for loving at all. In the Allegro deciso, Roxanne becomes aware of Cyrano’s feelings, but there it isn’t a happy ending for the now lovers – Cyrano has been carrying an injury and, in the Finale, dies.
Recommended recording: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/václav Smetáωek, Supraphon 11102456
Suk Pohádka
This orchestral fairy tale, which Dvoπák called ‘music from heaven’, was initially written in 1898 as incidental music for a play by Czech novelist Julius Zeyer before Suk condensed it into a four-movement suite. The magical story of lovers Radúz and Mahulena begins with a shimmering solo violin, quivering strings, and gently intertwining woodwind representing the pair’s passion. A scherzo riff on a series of quintessentially Czech dances shows the fairies ‘playing at swans and peacocks’ before, in the dramatic final movement, they fight the evil Queen Runa and break her curse of hatred that keeps them apart.
Recommended recording: Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra/joann Falletta Naxos 8.572323
Bartók Kossuth
Like Janáωek’s Taras Bulba, Bartók’s Kossuth (1903) is an orchestral portrait of a nationalist historical figure. The Hungarian composer chose to focus on a real-life politician from his country’s history, the freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth, a key player in the 1848 revolution to win independence from Austria. No surprise, then, that a parody of the Austrian national anthem is woven throughout the piece’s ten interconnected movements. Unlike Janáωek’s blazing, bold idiom, there’s a sense that Bartók is still finding his own voice in this early work, and other composers loom large. Just a year before, he had attended the premiere of Strauss’s
Also sprach Zarathustra, while the funeral march movement, the composer noted, borrows from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
Recommended recording: Hungarian National Po/zoltán Kocsis Hungaroton HSACD32502
Lysenko Taras Bulba
Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko’s opera, which he laboured over for ten years, lay unpublished until after his death in 1912, as Ukrainian opera houses were too ill-equipped to handle the ambitious subject matter. Admired by Tchaikovsky, this Taras Bulba has a deep patriotic seam running through it – although based largely on Gogol’s tale, Lysenko takes liberties with the ending, leading the Cossack and his elder son to glorious victory rather than to their humiliating deaths. The music pays homage to Rimsky-korsakov, who taught Lysenko orchestration, although much of the opera was reorchestrated in the 1930s, which has coated it in something of a cinematic sheen.
Recommended recording: Andrey Kykot et al; Ukrainian National Opera/simeonov Melodiya (available to stream online)