Karel Ancerl, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra - Leos Janacek: Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba / Igor Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms (2018) [SACD]

If you love Janacek you'll want to hear the Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba in high-res, because these are the reference performances of these wonderful pieces, against which all others are measured. David Hurwitz extols their many virtues at Classics Today, and even opines that the Sinfonietta is the best-SOUNDING recording ever. Since then we've had, for one, the Gardner/Bergen SACDs, and these 1961 recordings could never approach their clarity and impact in, for example, the magnificent finale of Taras (a piece Gardner conducts particularly well). But taken on their own terms they are certainly effective enough to do justice to Ancerl's commanding yet humane vision and the glorious playing of the CPO. Compared to the Ancerl Edition remaster, the Sinfonietta is much brighter and reveals quite a lot more detail; it feels truer to the master tape. This is a gripping, edge-of-your seat experience, whereas the CD sounds toned-down, more comfortable - but these are wild, pagan, mythic works, and the sound here works for them. If they had been recorded a couple of years later they would likely have been less etched, more refined and spacious, like the great work the same engineer, Miroslav Kulhan, did on the Shostakovich 1 in 1964. His recording of the Symphony of Psalms, from 1966, is not quite on that level, but it's good, and the performance is very much worth hearing.