The suite usually performed from Janácek’'s The Cunning Little Vixen, arranged by Talich in the 1930s, is a 17-minute diptych using material from Act 1 only (ie up to the point of the Vixen’s bloody escape from the Forester’s yard) and is based on a reorchestration Talich commissioned that was easier to play. Breiner’s returns to the original and runs to nearly 40 minutes. Breiner’s first two movements follow the same basic trajectory as Talich’s but the suite then takes off with the Vixen’s courtship and eventual marriage to the Fox over the next two spans. The fifth movement deals with the Vixen’s desperate hunt to feed her cubs and eventual death at the hand of the poacher but the brief finale (“Vixen is Running”) lights up the orchestra with its paean to nature.

Hope of a different kind underlies From the House of the Dead, Janácek’'s final opera. Here Breiner has started with the Overture (related to the music of the Violin Concerto) and proceeds once again through six highly coloured movements running to over 35 minutes. The hard edge of Janácek’s scoring, devoid of the vocal elements, becomes even more telling.

Breiner himself conducts, securing accomplished playing from the New Zealanders, and Naxos’s sound is rich with depth. It might be said that the two suites here are almost too much of a good thing, representing significant proportions of the parent works unlike the normal selection of morsels that are spread through the repertoire. I’d rather have too much of a good thing than too little, though some may find the brevity of Talich’s Vixen Suite more enticing as an introduction to the opera, much like an overture. Mackerras’s famous recording (Supraphon, 5/04), not really listable as a comparison, has an edge in terms of performance but those who want to dip more than their toe into Janácek’s sound world should turn to Breiner.