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This week we return to Jascha Horenstein and the music of Leoš Janáček. The two met at a festival in 1927, after which Horenstein described the Czech composer as “a rustic character, very warm, open, pleasant and easy going". The two men formed an immediate musical bond, and in the years that followed Janáček's death in 1928 Horenstein was one of few conductors to regularly play and promote the Czech composer's music.
This included the present opera, From The House Of The Dead, on a number of occasions; in February 1928 he had also conducted the Viennese première of the Sinfonietta.
From The House Of The Dead, performed here for the first time in France in a live radio broadcast really is an excellent production in every respect, and coupled with the 1955 Vienna SO Vox Sinfonietta, makes a fine way to mark the 92nd anniversary this week of Janáček's death.