A celebration of Bohemian spirit and rhythmic brilliance, Antonin Dvorak's Slavonic Dances come to life in a vibrant new recording by the Czech Philharmonic, led by the masterful Sir Simon Rattle. These vivid orchestral gems, full of rhythmic vitality, folkloric color, and lyrical charm, are central to Dvorak's legacy and pivotal in defining a Czech national sound. Composed at a turning point in the composer's career, the Slavonic Dances radiate with joy, invention, and national character qualities that captivated audiences across Europe and beyond. As Principal Guest Conductor: Rafael Kubelik Chair, Sir Simon Rattle has already graced the label alongside the orchestra and Magdalena Kožena with Czech Songs (2024) and Folk Songs (2023). This release continues the exclusive collaboration between PENTATONE and the Czech Philharmonic (awarded Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year in 2024), committed to bringing Czech music to life on a global stage. It follows the acclaimed recordings of Dvorak's Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 & 9 (2024) and, 2025's winner of the BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Award, Smetana's Ma Vlast with Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov, as well as Dvorak's Legends and Rhapsodies with Tomas Netopil.

String Serenades by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) and Josef Suk (1874-1935) have become a stable part of the repertoire of Czech chamber string orchestras, providing them with an opportunity to prove their performing mastery, and are very popular with the listeners. This album is a re-edition of the recordings by the Czech Chamber Orchestra from 1994 (Dvorak) and 2000 (Suk) that were released in 2001 by WALDMANN label. Along with it's re-release on CD by Animal Music it is now being released also on streaming platforms for the first time. "In their pieces, Dvorak and Suk both drew on the older form of classical serenade, a kind of musical diversion in the best sense of the word, a form that reached the peak of it's popularity a century earlier as it was performed for the entertainment of the musicians and their music-loving audiences alike," says the musicologist Vaclav Holecek in the album's liner notes. This recording was made at a time when the Czech Chamber Orchestra performed under the leadership of the conductor, violinist and composer Ondrej Kukal (b. 1964). During his tenure, the orchestra was experiencing it's heyday. Interpretatively and dramaturgically, he followed the principles of the orchestra's founder, Vaclav Talich, who founded the orchestra in 1945 with some of his best students from the Prague Conservatory. Thanks to it's rigorous rehearsal routine and precise as well as enthusiastic approach to performance, the orchestra soon won a renown on the Czechoslovak stages and abroad, and collaborated, under Talich's baton, with foremost international soloists, including Pierre Fournier, Germaine Leroux, and others. The initial phase of the orchestra's promising career came to an end in 1948, when the Czechoslovak Communist regime banned Vaclav Talich from performing in public. In 1958, Josef Vlach (1923-1988), the first violin of the original Czech Chamber Orchestra and Talich's student and collaborator decided to revive his teacher's initiative. Under Vlach's leadership, the ensemble appeared on stages in Czechoslovakia, across Europe, Asia and America, and was a regular guest at prestigious festivals, including the Prague Spring Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Collaborations with soloists included Henry Szeryng, Yehudi Menuhin, Leonid Kogan, Ivan Moravec, and Josef Suk, to name just a few. After Josef Vlach's demise, the Czech Chamber Orchestra performed on irregular basis for some time. Nevertheless, the new first violin, Vlach's daughter, violinist Jana Vlachova took over the artistic leadership of the orchestra and also followed in the steps of her father and Vaclav Talich before him. Vlachova invited artists of her own generation into collaboration, among them the conductor, violinist and composer Ondrej Kukal (b. 1964) who became the orchestra's next leader. Under his leadership between 1993 and 2003, the Czech Chamber Orchestra maintained a regular concert calendar once again. After Ondrej Kukal gradually curtailed his conducting career due to a serious illness (he currently dedicates himself fully to composition), the conductor Andreas Sebastian Weiser collaborated with the orchestra. Today, the Czech Chamber Orchestra performs on special occasions only.

Despite his many successes, Antonin Dvorak always claimed to have remained a "simple Bohemian musician" - a self-description that, ironically, has made it harder for posterity to appreciate the breadth of his work fully. This is particularly evident in the realm of chamber music, a field Dvorak explored even more extensively than his mentor, Johannes Brahms. With more than a dozen string quartets alone, alongside various other smaller and larger formats, Dvorak's body of work offers a broad spectrum, where the so-called "Slavic" tones are by no means always the dominant voice. With this fifth double album, the Hagen Quartet concludes it's acclaimed complete recording, which spans the fascinating range from Dvorak's early grapplings with Wagner and Liszt to his later reflections on the "New World", revealing unexpected depths behind the face of the "humble musician".

The Simply Quartet is among the most sought-after ensembles of the younger generation. It regularly graces the stages of leading concert venues and receives widespread acclaim. On their new GENUIN album, the young musicians devote themselves to two mature works: the final quartets of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Antonin Dvorak. With interpretations marked by great fidelity to the works, they show how they combine youthful energy with sweeping musical lines, resulting in a genuinely electrifying chamber music recording!

The Dresdner Philharmonie and Marek Janowski present a recording of Antonin Dvorak's Stabat Mater, together with the MDR Leipzig Radio Choir, Hanna-Elisabeth Muller (soprano), Roxana Constantinescu (mezzo-soprano), Christian Elsner (tenor) and Tareq Nazmi (bass). In terms of scope and duration, Dvorak's Stabat Mater is the largest setting of this sacred text to date. Likely inspired by the tragic death of all his three children - in the timespan of just two years - the work is heartrending, yet establishes a gradual path from darkness to light, from despair to peace and hope; ascetic and restrained, yet full of suspense. This recording, made in connection to a live performance commemorating the bombing of Dresden, offers a rendition that never drags, avoids excessive sentimentality, and is all the more moving as a result. Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time and has a vast PENTATONE discography, chiefly consisting of German operas and symphonic works. From 2019 to 2023 he was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Dresdner Philharmonie. Dvorak's Stabat Mater is his seventh PENTATONE recording with this orchestra, with whom he recently released Schubert's Unfinished and Great Symphonies (2023), Schumann's complete symphonies (2024), as well as Haydn's Die Schopfung (2024). The MDR Leipzig Radio Choir also appeared on that recording, has frequently featured on other PENTATONE recordings and starred on Bruckner Haydn Motets (2021) and Mendelssohn Choral Works (2023). Hanna-Elisabeth Muller released Reine de coeur (2018) and Sinnbild; Strauss Songs (2022) on PENTATONE. Roxana Constantinescu featured on PENTATONE recordings of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Puccini's Il tabarro (both 2020), as well as Kodaly & Bartok (2023). Christian Elsner also has a longstanding relationship with the label, including his solo recording of Schubert Lieder (2015). Tareq Nazmi appeared on the beforementioned recording of Die Schopfung.

The Gottingen Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Milton combines Dvorak's well-known symphony From the New World with the orchestral work Frozen in Time by Avner Dorman. This unusual combination results in an exciting musical journey that challenges the performers to present a broad spectrum of styles and techniques, thus opening up a "new world".

The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra enjoyed a long and intensive artistic collaboration, which came to an abrupt end with Haitink's death in October 2021. BRKLASSIK now presents outstanding and previously unreleased live recordings of their concerts from past years. This recording of Dvorak's Seventh Symphony documents a concert given in March 1981 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. The "Scherzo capriccioso" is a studio recording, also from March 1981. Following the success of Antonin Dvorak's first visit to London in 1884, the London Philharmonic Society asked him to return the following year and to compose a new symphony for the occasion. It was an honourable request - after all, the London Philharmonic Society had commissioned Beethoven's Ninth Symphony six decades earlier! When Dvorak began sketching out the symphony on December 13, 1884, he was well aware of the high expectations involved - both his own and those of others. Most music critics and Dvorak biographers, however, have struggled with the interpretation of this exceptional piece. For example, it has been interpreted "politically" against the background of the growing German-Czech tensions of those years. But the existential power of the D minor Symphony - it's anger, it's expansive pessimism, i.e. it's confessional character - may also derive from the biography and personality of it's composer, which were probably far more complex, painful and problematic than any "Bohemian idyll" we might assume. Even in Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, which is considered to be more cheerful, and in his last symphony, "From the New World", one can still detect a more or less latent tendency towards tragic longing. The world premiere of the Seventh Symphony took place on April 22, 1885 in London, with the composer conducting. It became one of Dvorak's greatest successes. Dvorak's Scherzo capriccioso of 1883 is certainly more than just a filler on this CD. The fact that it is more dramatic and passionate than it's playful title suggests is probably due to the fact that it was written at a time of crisis in the composer's life. The work is an elaborate composition of convincing craftsmanship

From an artistic point of view, Dvorak reacted with this work to the Stabat Mater by the German church musician and priest Franz Xaver Witt, the founder of the Cecilia Society, which was performed in Prague in 1875. This work, scored for only choir and organ, was a pontifically approved version of contemporary church music. In the nineteenth century, the Vatican generally supported a return to the sober a cappella style of Palestrina while being critical of orchestral sacred works. Dvorak, at the time organist at the Prague church of St. Adalbert, did not agree with this view. He had a different idea of a Catholic choral work, and his Stabat Mater is more in line with Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonic conception of the Missa solemnis

The award-winning duo of flautist Silvia Schiaffino and guitarist Renato Procopio present a musical travelogue ranging from Western to Eastern Europe before journeying further afield to Japan, Iran and Korea. As well as masterpieces such as Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances, and a rip-roaring Monti Csardas, this evocative selection includes the colourful and piquant, such as the music of Sakura, as well as Procopio's own vibrant arrangement of Korean folk songs.

Under the title "Kaleidoskop Europa", this CD presents a musical journey that encompasses the entirety of Europe. Central to the album is the concept of dance as a medium that both connects people via music and body language, and also motivates them to express themselves with one another, regardless of national origin, language, religion or culture. The album features dances from eleven different European countries, commencing and concluding the musical journey in Vienna-the home of both the ensemble and the painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller. By combining pieces of music from different countries, dance emerges as a symbol of the unity found within Europe's diverse cultures. All compositions are arranged for piano trio, with the exception of the opening march by Fritz Kreisler, which was originally composed for this instrumentation. Some arrangements were made by Martin Forst, the cellist of the trio, specifically for this production, thus leading to their premiere presentation on this CD. Through these adaptations, works originally composed for piano or orchestra take on a new form: the auditory experience is enhanced by numerous dimensions-particularly regarding color richness and transparency - revealing intriguing and novel facets of the compositions to listeners.

As for this new album, neither Glinka nor Dvorak are strangers to Haiou Zhang, since he is considered to be one of the most passionate pianists of his generation as far as piano chamber music is concerned. The Dvorak Piano Quintet and Glinka´s Gran Sestetto have always been at the heart of his chamber music repertoire. Haiou Zhang has performed these masterpieces in numerous concerts with ensembles. "It took me quite some time to feel really ready for a recording. Both pieces are delicate and need careful attention to obtain the perfect balance of sound and harmony".

Harriet Krijgh is one of today's most exciting and promising young cellists. Her grace and expressiveness touch her audiences as soon as she is on the concert platform. Her discography also comprises of six discs, all released by Capriccio in the last six years, featuring music by Kabalewski, Haydn, Brahms, Rachmaninoff as well as several French composers. Krijgh is winner of numerous competitions. She was chosen "Rising Star" of by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) and was artistic director of the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival in 2017 and 2018. With the present CD she made a long-held wish come true and presents two of the most popular cello concertos by Dvorak and Elgar.

Renowned bass-baritone Adam Plachetka celebrates the Year of Czech Music with an anthology of Czech evening songs by Antonin Dvorak, Bedrich Smetana, Zdenek Fibich and Josef Suk. All based on love poems for Vitezslav Halek's Vecerni pisne (Evening Songs), these songs provide a panorama of great Czech music, also zooming in on lesser-known repertoire. Plachetka performs them together with pianist David svec. Bass-baritone Adam Plachetka frequents the world's most prestigious opera houses, and is a MET regular, equally at home in dramatic and comic repertoire. He returns to PENTATONE after having released Molieri, combining opera arias by Mozart and Salieri, in 2022.

Won't nearly an hour and three quarters of music for violin and piano by the same composer be too monotonous? No it won't because it is Dvorak... Dvorak never repeated himself; in every work, he created a different musical world. It would be hard to find another composer capable of such diversity within a single musical genre. After the earliest of the pieces, the Romance, he sent his publisher Simrock the Mazurek, which he dedicated to the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. The almost meditative Nocturne first appeared in a string quartet and then a quintet before being heard for the first time as an independent piece in arrangements including one for violin and piano. The Violin Sonata in F major, a chamber music pendant to Dvorak's Violin Concerto, clearly took inspiration from Brahms's First Violin Sonata. And there is more: the virtuosic Capriccio, the haunting Romantic Pieces, the Slavonic Dance No. 2 presented here uniquely in the composer's own arrangement, the delightful Humoresque arranged by Fritz Kreisler... and a work bearing the opus number 100, which Dvorak deliberately reserved for his Sonatina dedicated to two of his children; though simple, it is no less individual than any of the composer's other mature opuses. To sum it all up, this is a unique collection of Dvorak's complete works for violin and piano recorded by the virtuoso Jiri Vodicka, concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic, sensitively accompanied by David Marecek at the piano. The recording is enhanced by the beautiful acoustics of the Rudolfinum's Dvorak Hall in Prague. Dvorak for violin and piano. A new world of music in every composition.

First-ever issues of performances which extend our appreciation for the art of the conductor Launy Grondahl. Recorded towards the end of his long career as conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, these broadcasts (1950-56) present Grondahl in both rare and standard repertoire, as a stylish concerto accompanist and as a dedicated servant of Danish composers. A pair of tantalisingly incomplete Sibelius performances testifies to the conductor's deep feeling for the elusive flow of this music, taken from a concert given to mark the composer's 85th birthday

Benedict Kloeckner, one of the most remarkable cellists of his generation and winner of the OPUS Klassik 2021, is set to release a new album featuring the beloved Dvorak Cello Concerto. Recorded in collaboration with the SWR, accompanied by the Romanian Chamber Orchestra, which is led by conductor Cristian Macelaru. This album highlights Kloeckner's exceptional sense of melodic expressiveness and lesser known chamber works for cello and piano by Dvorak. The pieces for cello and piano by Dvorak, some of which are thematically connected to the concerto, showcase the deep musical synergy between Kloeckner and his accompanist, the acclaimed pianist Danae Dorken.

Roll up, roll up! All aboard the 19th century Zri celebration cruise from Vienna to Odessa! Our legendary house band are as stylishly up to the moment as ever, reimagining the latest hits by Herren Rossini, Strauss, Schubert and even Dr Brahms with an intoxicating Romani twist!

Bridge Records is pleased to present this previously unissued performance by the Stuyvesant Quartet. The recording is the only known "in concert" recording by this stellar quartet of players associated with Toscanini's legendary NBC Symphony Orchestra, and was made at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium in 1946. This release is part of Bridge's ongoing series devoted to the Stuyvesant Quartet's historic recordings.

REVIEW:

It is fitting that Prokofiev’s First Quartet is performed here, as this work was first performed at the LoC itself. The inclusion of Dohnányi’s Second Quartet is certainly cause for celebration. Their Dvořák cuts deep emotionally. This disc of historic performances is a little miracle and recommended without hesitation.

— Fanfare