Robert Hugo, Capella Regia Musicalis, Magdalena Kožená - Jakub Jan Ryba: Czech Christmas Mass; 3 Pastorellas (2009)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 235 Mb | Total time: 50:01 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | 477 8365 | Recorded: 1998
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 235 Mb | Total time: 50:01 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | 477 8365 | Recorded: 1998
Jakub Jan Ryba's Czech Christmas Mass, the composer's most famous work, has a kind of local cultural significance analogous to the importance of Handel's Messiah in English-speaking countries. Ryba, born between Mozart and Beethoven, uses the language of the late Classical era, and his Mass has an entirely unpretentious folk-like quality and directness. Ryba's music and his orchestrations in particular, are full of wit and fresh inventiveness, but he seems innocent of melodic or harmonic complexity. The effect, though, is not predictably simplistic, but charmingly rustic and emotionally transparent. The performers here, while clearly artists of the utmost sophistication, have just the right unmannered approach for the music, and it comes off beautifully.