Janoska Ensemble

Vienna's Janoska Ensemble occupies a uniquely Eastern European space in between classical and popular traditions, a space it calls "Janoska Style," and it lives up to this rather ambitious name. The family group has released multiple successful recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label. The Janoska Ensemble was formed in 2013 by three brothers from Bratislava, Slovakia: Ondrej (violin), Roman (violin), and Frantisek (piano) Janoska, and their double-bassist brother-in-law, Julius Darvas. The rhythm-heavy nature of the instrumental grouping gives an indication of what the music is like: it is rooted in the Viennese café music of the fin-de-siècle, mixing melodies from the classical repertory with Romani and other Eastern European vernacular influences. The sound is built to be able to cut through a crowd of chatting people, and it's still well-suited for that purpose today if one wishes. However, its music updates this tradition in the direction of virtuosity and wider geographic and temporal range. The players are not café musicians but Bratislava-conservatory graduates, and they enliven programs not only with Fritz Kreisler's Liebesleid but with considerably more difficult Kreisler pieces and with "Paganinoska," their own version of Paganini's treacherous Caprice No. 24. Signed to Deutsche Grammophon, the Janoska Ensemble released its debut album, Janoska Style, in 2016. The group's music draws on the café music tradition but also broadens it. Jazz, Cuban rumba (in an adaptation of the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, of Mozart, no less), and folk traditions, including the tarantella, also make appearances, as does Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla. The Janoska Ensemble has appeared at Vienna's Musikverein, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sydney Opera House, and other major venues, and it has toured in programs of tango-related music with bass-baritone Erwin Schrott. The group returned on Deutsche Grammophon in 2019 with the album Revolution, and 2022 brought The Big B's, featuring the group's own arrangements of music by Bach, Beethoven (including a nine-minute piece summarizing all of Beethoven's nine symphonies), Brahms, and Bartók.
© James Manheim /TiVo