Janacek, In the Mists: Molto Adagio downbeats

[wordsfail]

The Molto Adagio from Janacek’s In the Mists displays his characteristic avoidance of the downbeat. Easy enough in the slow bit my question is about the extended Presto sections. I find it easier to simply feel the second demisemiquaver of each bar as the downbeat - the result is cleaner than feeling the rest at the start of each bar. But somehow it doesn’t feel true to the spirit of the thing. That being said, I’ve listened to many recordings and I cannot help but hear the second demisemiquaver as the downbeat - especially when the RH starts hammering out the semiquaver motif.

Is it cheating for me to mentally move the bar lines for ease of production? Will anyone hear the difference anyway? What do you do?

[brogers70]

It does seem like he went to a lot of extra effort to notate it on the offbeats. Maybe just holding back slightly on the first note of each group so it sounds less like a downbeat. I'm not sure. That section always gave me headaches.