Leoš Janáček and the generation younger Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky were major 20th-century composers markedly influenced by folk music, bringing it to bear in their own creations. Their works feature on the remarkable new album Village Stories of the world-renowned Prague Philharmonic Choir, led by Lukáš Vasilek. Stravinsky’s Les noces, Janáček’s Nursery Rhymes and Bartók’s Village Scenes are brought back to life on new recordings. Vasilek invited to the studio superb soloists, including the soprano Kateřina Kněžíková, the mezzo-soprano Jana Hrochová, the tenor Boris Stepanov and the baritone Jiří Brückler, as well as the outstanding pianists Zoltán Fejérvári and Kirill Gerstein, the Zemlinsky Quartet and the Belfiato Quintet. Supraphon will release the album on 27 October 2023 on CD and in digital formats.

After critically-acclaimed recordings of Mahler’s Fourth and Fifth Symphony, the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov continue their Pentatone Mahler cycle with a rendition of the composer’s Second, nicknamed “The Resurrection”. They are joined by soprano Christiane Karg, alto Elisabeth Kulman and the Prague Philharmonic Choir. Starting with a funeral march, passing through the introspective alto song “Urlicht” and ending in choral bliss and euphoria, Mahler’s Second is a deeply spiritual and personal contemplation on the secret of life and the possibility of overcoming death. For Bychkov, the symphony “shows the life cycle in all its struggles: suffering, joy, irony, humour, love and doubt.”

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, truly merits the adjective "tragic"; it was written after the deaths of two of the composer's children in succession, and his grief rolled out in great, Verdian waves. There are several strong recordings on the market, including an earlier one by conductor Jiří Bělohlávek himself, but for the combination of deep feeling, technical mastery from musicians and singers who have spent their lives getting to know the score, and soloists who not only sound beautiful but are seamlessly integrated into the flow, this Decca release may be the king of them all. To what extent was the strength of the performance motivated by Bělohlávek's likely fatal illness (he died days after the album entered the top levels of classical charts in the spring of 2017)? It's hard to say, although he also delivered top-notch performances of Dvorák's Requiem in his last days. The members of the Prague Philharmonic Choir sing their hearts out in the gigantic, shattering opening chorus, which has rarely if ever had such a mixture of the impassioned and the perfectly controlled. Sample the chorus "Virgo virginium praeclara" to hear the magically suspended quality Bělohlávek brings out of the singers in lightly accompanied passages.