Martinů's Field Mass broadcast

Listen to Martinů's Field Mass HERE. It's part of a very long broadcast of excerpts from summer music festivals all round Europe this year. The Field Mass comes from this year's commemorative held in Martinů's home village, so it's specially heartfelt. The sincerity of this performance brings it alive: it's not recorded "in the field" but in the church which the composer attended as a boy, which gives it a directness you don't get in more formal studio situations. It's Ivan Kusnjer, the Czech Phil Chamber Orchestra and Marko Ivanovic.

It starts around 3 hours into a 4 hour broadcast, but the rest of the programme is worth catching if you didn't get to the European festivals they came from, in Norway, Finland, Austria and the Czech Republic. Anne Sofie von Otter sings Bach with Concertus Copenhagen, Paul Lewis plays the Diabellis at Schwarzenberg, Mendelssohn chorales at Bodensee and a new Dvoràk festival with Belòhlávek. Thru the year, we get many of the big European festivals but you have to be quick to spot them on the schedules.