A.dvorak

In the 1980's, conductor Neeme Jarvi recorded the nine Dvorak symphonies with the Scottish National Symphony for Chandos. Most of the recordings have received favorable reviews, and some critics believe the cycle established Jarvi the interpreter of Dvorak's music. While I do not own all the recordings in the series and for that reason cannot compare it to other Dvorak recordings by Jarvi, I can say it is an excellent recording and one of my favorites in my collection (consisting of nearly 800 recordings). It begins with the tone poem "The Noon Witch." It is a musical telling of a story similar to "Hansel and Gretel" and Dvorak cleverly uses different instruments and themes to tell the story.

Previous albums on Piano Classics by Leonardo Pierdomenico have won enthusiastic praise from the international critics. Of his debut Liszt recital including the Csardas macabre (PCL10151), Fanfare noted: ‘scrupulous performances, featuring exceptional textural clarity and rhythmic resilience, coupled with an often striking attention to harmonic nuance.’ Gramophone awarded it Editor’s Choice: ‘His highly developed technique and cultivated sound, both adaptable to a variety of effects, are wedded to those twin essentials for artistic Liszt playing: imagination combined with thoroughgoing, scrupulous musicality.’

This performance of the fiery Fantasy in G minor for violin and orchestra, Op. 24, of Josef Suk, with violinist Christan Tetzlaff catching the full impact of the irregular form with its dramatic opening giving out into a set of variations, is impressive. And Tetzlaff delivers pure warm melody in the popular Romance in F minor, Op. 11, of Dvorák. But the real reason to acquire this beautifully recorded Ondine release is the performance of the Dvorák Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, a work of which there are plenty of recordings, but that has always played second fiddle (if you will) to the Brahms concerto. Tetzlaff and the Helsinki Philharmonic under John Storgårds create a distinctive and absorbing version that can stand with the great Czech recordings of the work. Sample anywhere, but especially the slow movement, where Tetzlaff's precise yet rich sound, reminiscent for those of a certain age of Henryk Szeryng, forms a striking contrast with Storgårds' glassy Nordic strings. In both outer movements as well, Tetzlaff delivers a warm yet controlled performance that is made to stand out sharply.

This CD features two quite lovely piano quintets, beautifully played by a quartet of players from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with Clifford Curzon at the piano. The first piece is by Antonin Dvorak, who composed two piano quintets. The first of these is a relatively early work that Dvorak composed in 1872 when he was 31. The second of his quintets was composed only 15 years later and remains one of his most popular chamber works. The other piece on the CD is by César Franck and, along with his other major chamber works - the violin sonata and the string quartet - reminds the listener of the atmosphere of Franck's best known work, the symphony in d minor.

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, written in the aftermath of the deaths of three of his children, is a sober and powerful work, inexplicably neglected and unlike any other work of choral music from the 19th century. Perhaps most performances don't capture its full weight, but this live recording from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, does so. There are many deep pleasures here. The orchestra's choir is extraordinary: rich yet without a hint of wobble and utterly clear in its sense of the text. Jansons keeps things at a deliberate pace that lets the music breathe and the currents of personal experience rise to the surface. The soloists, none terribly well known, are fine in their individual numbers, but absolutely transcendent in ensembles, nowhere more so that in the sublime "Quando corpus morietur" finale (track 10); there are a couple of other strong recordings of this work, but it seems likely that no one has ever matched this conclusion. The live recording from the Herkulessaal in Munich is impressively transparent and faithful to the spontaneity of the event. A superb Dvorák release.

The Beaux Arts, late 1980s-style, is recognizably the same creature as it was at the start of the decade, or even two decades ago. The fingers of Menahem Pressler still twinkle away, the violin and cello exchange angst for mischief in volatile and ebullient alternation. The most obvious comparison for their latest release is the identical Dvorak/Mendelssohn coupling of 1980 on Pearl. Then Daniel Guilet was the violinist, and his comparatively small voice and old-style sweetness make their mark: this Dvorak is a small-scale, kid-glove performance, with the gentle acoustic recessing the violin even further and softening the high-spirited Dumka episodes.

One of the very greatest collections of Dvorák recordings in the catalog, this set contains the four late tone poems based on folk legends, all of the major overtures (including the In Nature's Realm, Carnival, and Othello trilogy), and the magnificent Symphonic Variations. That's over two and a half hours of the some of the most colorful, appealing music in the history of the universe, all magnificently performed and recorded. If you don't own this set, you haven't lived.

Antonín Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Op. 58, truly merits the adjective "tragic"; it was written after the deaths of two of the composer's children in succession, and his grief rolled out in great, Verdian waves. There are several strong recordings on the market, including an earlier one by conductor Jiří Bělohlávek himself, but for the combination of deep feeling, technical mastery from musicians and singers who have spent their lives getting to know the score, and soloists who not only sound beautiful but are seamlessly integrated into the flow, this Decca release may be the king of them all. To what extent was the strength of the performance motivated by Bělohlávek's likely fatal illness (he died days after the album entered the top levels of classical charts in the spring of 2017)? It's hard to say, although he also delivered top-notch performances of Dvorák's Requiem in his last days. The members of the Prague Philharmonic Choir sing their hearts out in the gigantic, shattering opening chorus, which has rarely if ever had such a mixture of the impassioned and the perfectly controlled. Sample the chorus "Virgo virginium praeclara" to hear the magically suspended quality Bělohlávek brings out of the singers in lightly accompanied passages.