Reviewing Kempe's excellent recording of the Glagolitic Mass in its incarnation on Australian Eloquence, my colleague Victor Carr, Jr. wrote: "Rudolph Kempe leads a grand and ceremonial reading of Janácek's Glagolitic Mass with tempos tending to the slow side, imparting a feeling of solemnity to the proceedings. Not a solemnity of the dull type--this is no Brahms German Requiem--but one that combines religious fervor and carnal intensity. Kempe puts the Royal Philharmonic through its paces, especially in the Credo and Processional. There's much excitement from the chorus and soloists as well. Teresa Kubiak sings with full-thoated passion in the Gloria, though tenor Robert Tear, however passionately committed, lacks a true Slavic timbre. John Birch adroitly tackles the delirious organ solo." I have little to add to this evaluation, save that remastering has brightened up the sound to good effect, so if you haven't purchased the Eloquence issue, this more expensive option will deliver slightly better sonics. The couplings come from Mackerras' Decca series of the great operas, and are played with predictable authority (though there's a whopping trumpet flub at the climax of Jealousy, just before the end). It's so interesting to hear the way Mackerras manages to get the Vienna Philharmonic to produce the lean sonority that Janácek requires, though Talich's reorchestrations in the suite from The Cunning Little Vixen sound excessively rich next to what we now know as the composer's authentic sonority. Still, this reissue belongs in the library of anyone who loves Janácek. And doesn't everyone? --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com