Janácek dominates this record of Czech music, even though he is represented by an uncharacteristic early work and by an arrangement. The leading Janácek scholar John Tyrrell calls the Suite of 1877 “a rag-bag of influences”, which is perhaps a little hard. Undoubtedly the shadow – or rather the light – of Dvorák falls across the first and last movements, and Janácek must surely have heard the soaring strings of the Prelude to Lohengrin before writing the Adagio of the second movement (a sound that also haunts Martinu’s Andantino). But even at this stage of his career, in his early twenties, he was forming a voice and had a fine ear for sonorities. This is well caught by the excellent chamber orchestra that takes his name, and by this recording. The arrangement of his First String Quartet gives the group something to play and is cleverly done (with the addition only of a double bass), but the enterprise seems to blunt the painful acuity of the drama.

Martinu’s Sextet is another arrangement, by the composer himself, of his String Sextet, and is beautifully scored with his usual fine ear, though as so often with him it seems to be a triumph of skill over substance. Not so the nine-minute Study by Pavel Haas. It is difficult to detach responses from the awareness that this heroic figure, one of Janácek’s best pupils, wrote it in Terezín in 1943 for the camp orchestra, a year before his murder in Auschwitz. It was dedicated to Karel An∂erl, who was also in Terezín, survived, and rescued it. There is in it a little of Janá∂ek, perhaps something of Hindemith, and the creative energy, especially in a truly invigorating fugue, is inspiring.