Janácek: Choral Works – review

As a boy chorister in his Czech-Moravian homeland, Janácek (1854-1928) learned early the potential of choral writing. This selection is mostly folk-inspired, apparently sunny but hinting at the psychological darkness of the composer's better known operas. Six Moravian Choruses (transcribed from Dvorák's Moravian Duets) tell of a slighted heart, promises of love and parting "without sorrow". The "Elegy on the Death of My Daughter Olga" is grief-laden but ends in her soul being magically transformed into light. A batch of Nursery Rhymes offer light relief and the disc ends with a serene setting of the "Our Father", sung with well-drilled, idiomatic precision by the long-established Cappella Amsterdam.