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Leos Janácek's Glagolitic Mass brilliantly blends the majesty of church liturgy with the vibrant humanity of the Slavic music the composer loved; Klaas Rusticus's Dandelion Crown drapes over the mass a third element, a trite religious allegory that adds nothing to the music, and in fact lessens it considerably. In a remote village, a young, newly orphaned woman becomes shunned by the community for her rejection of the official trappings of mourning. Her grief is assuaged by the moonlit arrival of a young man on a white steed, and the comfort of a second young lady with whom she frolics in a patch of the eponymous wildflowers. The newcomers seem of mystical origin (angels? friendly witches? the narrative is slight but rather cryptic), and indeed are soon set upon by a hooded inquisitor and a band of religious bigots. The imagery is far too static and lifeless to stand on its own; yet aside from the gloomily gathering clouds that form under the Introduction and the effective use of the Agnus Dei's ephemeral yearning to accompany the town's inhabitants as they slowly march up a hill clad in reverent black, the combination of visuals and music only demeans the latter, the mass's passionate reverence made mere irony and garish satire by the story's ham-fisted pantheism. The recording employed is Sir Simon Rattle's 1982 performance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a fine, powerful reading, if ultimately not as thrillingly idiomatic as Mackerras or Ancerl deliver; even with your eyes closed, this is hardly the best way to do justice to Janácek's masterpiece. --Bruce Reid
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