The chilly, empty-sounding ambience of Slovak Radio's concert-hall does nothing for its big-hearted orchestra. If only Naxos could have warmed it up a little. That said, these are the orchestral sounds that Janacek ordered. I like very much the six Lachian Dances, the strolling players complexion of the woodwind soloists, the stridency and fire in the belly of the strings: thoroughly unglamorous but wholly authentic—back-to-the-land Janacek. Ondrej Lenard ensures that each dance has a tale to tell: not so much dances, in fact, more ways of life.
He is less successful in the two big works. Of the two, Taras Bulba fares best. How extraordinary those opening pages always sound: the baleful cor anglais caught mid-lamentation, the disembodied strains of gothic organ, grainy string bass solos. All such details register strongly here; Lenard is clearly in no hurry to pass them by. Indeed, just occasionally his emphatic pacing proves inhibiting: the wild Polack rejoicing which envelops ''The Death of Ostap'' needs more of a sting by its tail: Ostap's death cry (graphically depicted by the E flat clarinet) must be uglier and more shocking. Then again, the long and uplifting peroration, the ''Prophecy and Death of Taras Bulba'', can take Lenard's breadth of utterance: taut, hard-sticked timpani (splendid, if somewhat over-projected in the recorded balance) and a determined first trumpet peal out the dying hero's vision of a free Cossack people.
Unfortunately, Lenard's (to say nothing of the recording's) shortcomings grow more pronounced in the Sinfonietta. The start is promising—a suitably pagan racket with Janacek's trumpets duly ricocheting off each other. But rhythms are nowhere near as tight nor as impulsive as they need to be in the inner movements (the 'rogue horn' passage at the heart of the third is hopelessly sluggish) and the tension comes and goes in the preparative opening paragraph of the finale—one of the most exacting (and exciting) in all Janacek. Balances are erratic, too: a solo trumpet line is all but submerged at the maestoso climax of the second movement; we need to hear more from the leading group of trumpets in the final paean; likewise the important tremolando violin line (important thematically as well as texturally—where is it?) in the closing bars. No challenge to the Macker- ras/VPO Sinfonietta/Taras Bulba coupling (mid-price Decca), but if the Vienna Philharmonic isn't Czech enough for you (for that very reason I know that Sir Charles would like to re-record those works), you could try Daniel Nazareth and the Slovak PO on Opus or the Belohlavek Sinfonietta on Chandos.'