The best opera composers use their orchestras to tell the emotional stories that words can’t or won’t. Janáček was a master of this, but he didn’t write many passages for orchestra alone and so various conductors and musicologists have pilfered bits from his operas to be played as instrumental suites in concert. Even then, it’s no easy task, given that his vocal lines are so intertwined with his instruments: Janáček rhythms, especially, are all about the contours of everyday speech. This disc contains three hefty suites compiled from the operas Jenůfa, Katya Kabanová and Fate; they’re medleys of big themes and interludes in which vocal parts are sometimes replaced by instruments (a trumpet in Jaroslav Smolka’s Suite from Katya, for example) and which are played by the Prague orchestra under Tomáš Netopil with weighty carefulness. I missed the nimbleness and acerbic chatter of my favourite Janáček interpreter (Mackerras), but there is detail and richness in the playing that feels very much at home.
