Supraphon’s survey of music in 18th-century Prague includes two sonatas by Frantisek Benda, one by Carl Heinrich Graun that used to pass as a work by Benda, a sonata by Josef Antonín Gurecký, and two by Frantisek Jiránek. Of these musical figures, Benda may be the best known; Dr. Charles Burney met him and considered him original in his time (although, like Giuseppe Tartini, Benda placed primary importance on the singing quality of his compositions for violin).


The program, played at a pitch approaching A=415, opens with Benda’s Sonata in Bb Major. In the opening Largo, violinist Lenka Torgersen demonstrates, with sonorous support from cellist Libor Masek, with what vocal purity Benda’s lines can flow; but she brings a lively playfulness to the ensuing Allegro , and to the following rapid movement. The first of Jiránek’s two sonatas, in F Major, shares in its opening Adagio the singing quality of Benda’s works, but Torgersen encrusts the Allegro that follows with spunky ornamentation and gives the final Tempo di Menuet an ingratiatingly zesty performance. The third sonata on the program, again by Benda, brings another engaging dialogue in the graceful opening Siciliano between the solo violin and the continuo group. The Allegro that follows contains some brief passages on the G-string; and, digging into them, Torgersen reveals the strength in this register of the 1760 violin by Sebastian Klotz upon which she plays, a register earlier composers generally avoided because of the massiveness and therefore the balkiness of the lowest string. She also spits defiantly in the movement’s across-the-string staccatos. These staccatos reappear in modified form during the thematically similar finale.


The sonata formerly attributed to Benda (and bearing catalog numbers for both composers) demands from the performers a similar lyrical affinity, especially, perhaps, in its Andante . Gurecký’s four-movement work (the others on the program all fall into three movements) includes in its second movement passages novel in harmony and some attempts to extend the violin part’s ambit upward; but its overall style fits into that prevalent in the rest of the program. The recital closes with a Sonata in C Major by Jiránek, at more than 12 minutes the longest of the program’s works. Its Adagio gives Torgersen an opportunity to indulge in pregnant rhetorical pauses, and Luks offsets its singing lyricism with flashing runs. The ensemble makes an especially strong case for the gavotte and variations that constitute the finale.


Leila Schayegh, Václav Luks, and Felix Knecht made a selection of Benda’s sonatas on Glossa 922507, Fanfare 35:6, as did Hans-Joachim Berg and Naoko Akutagawa on Naxos 8.572307, Fanfare 35:4. Berg produces a tone more nasal in quality and occasionally sounds as though he shifts awkwardly between positions, but he has the advantage of playing Benda’s ornamentation. Schayegh, on the other hand, playing some of the sonatas with fortepiano, deploys a tone lighter in weight but flexible and expressive. For those interested only in Benda’s works, it might be a toss-up, but for the entire program, Torgersen’s is hard to beat, with its lyrical and at times jaunty performances, and deserves to be recommended to almost all listeners.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Hunting cannot be thought about in isolation from the sounds accompanying it – the barking of dogs, the shrieks of frightened quarry, the shots, and the sound of horns and trumpets. Signal instruments and the atmosphere of chase gave rise to the special genre of “hunting music”. The quintessential hunting-related instrument is the French horn, which became widely used in Bohemia after 1760, owing to Count Franz Anton von Sporck. Yet hunting music, for a variety of ensembles (including the wind Harmonie), was also played at feasts and other social events. Hunting-themed pieces - cassations, serenades, partitas (many of them termed caccia or la chasse) - indicated their connection with hunting by the selection of instruments, the typical harmonies and melodies, as well as by featuring onomatopoeic effects, such as the sounds of animals and birds, and sonic renditions of buoyant merry-making in the wake of the hunting expedition. The music featured on the present album was written by three Czech representatives of high Classicism. Jirí Družecký and Jan Nepomuk Vent composed numerous popular pieces for wind instruments. Pavel Vranický, a friend of Haydn and Beethoven, who both chose him to conduct their works, was a distinguished theatre figure in Vienna.

POKORN´y Concerto in D for Horn, Timpani, and Strings. ROSETTI Horn Concertos: in E?; in d. PUNTO Horn Concerto No. 5 in F • Radek Baborák (hn); Prague CO • SUPRAPHON 4017 (72:51)


František Xaver Jan Pokorný (1729–94) served Count Philipp Karl of Öettingen-Wallerstein as court violinist from 1750 to 1754, whereupon he was sent to further his studies at Mannehim with Johann Stamitz, Richter, and Holzbauer. Upon returning to his court position, Pokorný was promised the position of choral director, but the Count reneged on his pledge. Patiently biding his time, Pokorný waited until 1766 when the Count finally obliged him by dying. It was then that Pokorný petitioned Prince Alexander Ferdinand Thurn-Taxis in Regensburg for a position at the Prince’s royal chapel. Admittance was granted, and there he remained for the rest of his life.


Some 100 symphonies have been attributed to Pokorný, but more than half of them cannot be authoritatively verified, as autographed scores in the Thurn-Taxis archive support his authorship in only about three dozen of them. Though Pokorný was not a horn player himself, his daughter, Beata, was. She became an acclaimed virtuoso on the instrument, and it’s a certainty that Pokorný wrote the concerto heard on this disc for her.


Antonio Rosetti (c. 1750–92) has fared somewhat better in the recognized name department. He was born Anton Rösler in what is believed to have been the Bohemian town of Litom?e?ice, though details of his exact date of birth and birthplace are not known for sure. What is known is that he returned from a trip to Italy sometime around 1773 no longer Rösler but Rosetti, and under his new Italianized name, he published a great deal of music, including numerous symphonies, concertos, and vocal works. Though Rosetti’s instrument was the double bass, not the horn, he is perhaps best known today for his several horn concertos, which, according to H. C. Robbins Landon, may have been the model for Mozart’s horn concertos.


Giovanni Punto (1746–1803) is another composer who underwent a name change. He was born Jan Václav Stich in Žehušice, Bohemia. Of the three composers on this CD, Punto is the only one who actually played the horn and who distinguished himself as one of its leading lights of the day. At a young age, he was sent by Count Johann Joseph Thun to study the instrument under Joseph Matiegka in Prague, then with Jan Schindelarz in Munich, and finally with A. J. Hampel in Dresden. The last named had long-ranging significance, as Hampel taught the precocious Punto—still Stich at the time—the new hand-stopping technique, which he would later improve upon.


The story might have ended badly for Stich, but Fate intervened on his behalf. After returning to the service of the Count, who had now invested a royal’s ransom in his young horn player’s education, the 20-year-old ingrate ran away with friends. As Shakespeare wrote, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” The infuriated Count, in a fit of cut-off-your-own-nose-to-spite-your-face pique and Biblically inspired retribution, sent his soldiers to apprehend Stich and knock out his teeth to prevent him from ever playing the horn again. But Stich escaped into Italy and became Giovanni Punto. After a brief stint in a couple of court orchestras, he began to freelance, finding himself much in demand in Paris, where he played nearly 50 concerts between 1776 and 1788 and met the Mozarts, père and fils.


Punto wrote a great deal of music, mostly for horn, mainly to display his own technical prowess on the instrument. Among his works are some 16 horn concertos, 47 horn trios, and 21 horn quartets. Few are performed or recorded, but Punto’s name remains a highlighted footnote to history, immortalized by Beethoven who composed his F-Major Horn Sonata, op. 17, for the brilliant player in 1800. The sonata was also published in a version for cello, but only rarely is it included in recordings of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano.


Only those who might have preferred a recording of these works on period instruments will be disappointed; all others rejoice. Nothing more really need be said about Radek Baborák beyond noting that since 2003 he has played principal horn in the Berlin Philharmonic. With that prestigious post on his résumé he can lay claim to one of the loftiest perches in horndom. But should you wish to know more about his illustrious career, check it out at his Web site: baborak.com.


From an artist of this caliber one expects nothing less than perfection and that’s what one gets on this recording. A tone of burnished gold issues forth from an instrument under absolute command. Pitch and breath control are perfect, and register shifts are so smooth and seamless that one is not even aware of them. This is truly some of the most awesome horn playing I think I’ve ever heard. The Prague Chamber Orchestra is conductorless; the ensemble, which has been around since 1951, plays with unanimity and precision, and sounds like it’s thoroughly into the high spirits of this music.


And as an afterword on the music, let me just say that I would give all of Mozart’s horn concertos, and Haydn’s too, for any one of the concertos on this disc. These are gloriously beautiful works that deserve far more exposure than they’ve had. I have a now 30-year-old recording of the Punto concerto with Barry Tuckwell, Neville Marriner, and the ASMF on EMI, and a 22-year-old recording of the Pokorný with Hermann Baumann, Iona Brown, and the ASMF on Philips. Neither touches this new one with Baborák, and both are showing their age.


This is definitely a disc for the horn lover. It’s also a disc for all those interested in lesser luminaries from the time of Haydn and Mozart who in their own day shone more brightly than they do now. Thumbs way up on this one.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This Jitka Hosprová homage honors Paul Hindemith (1895-1963); a composer and virtuoso violist who wrote all his viola works within twenty years or so and then abandoned composing for the instrument for good. The pieces featured here also bear witness to Hindemith’s journey from reverberations of Romanticism and Impressionism to attaining his own singular musical language, already evident in Sonata Op. 25. This music remains profound and colorful, as is the viola itself.

A superb collection of very early Kubelik recordings, including numerous world premieres.

This is an excellent collection honoring Rafael Kubelík. The two jam-packed CDs of live 1940s broadcasts include his central repertoire, works he championed very early on, and indeed multiple world-premiere recordings. Not least is the first-ever recording of Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, a live concert dating from December 1946; we also get a live reading of Dvorak’s Piano Concerto with Rudolf Firkusny, from the first-ever Prague Spring festival, and, although the booklet doesn’t identify the premiere recordings, I’d be surprised if any earlier performances of the Martin? Fourth Symphony or Memorial to Lidice, or Dobiás’ Stalingrad Cantata, exist.
 
The collection begins with Dvorak’s Eighth, in quite constricted sound - turn up the volume more than normal - but glittering with the kind of brilliance Kubelík brought to the piece for his entire career. Aside from a prominent trumpet flub in the finale, it’s a highly accomplished live reading by the Czech Philharmonic, revealing they and the conductor were masters of the symphony even in the besieged year of 1944. The piano concerto, in sound which suggests that the orchestra is playing somewhere very far away, nevertheless powers forward with energy and vigor. Firkusny plays the old “revised” piano part, with the absolute command which explains why he has long been associated with this piece. Luckily for us, the recording of his piano is much better than we’d expect from the murky-sounding orchestra. Firkusny’s cadenza is especially fine, although more recent interpreters - Aimard with Harnoncourt, say - are more to my liking in the poetic slow movement with its beautiful opening horn solo.
 
Shostakovich’s Ninth - the first recording of the work - is given a performance unlike any since. The outer movements are remarkably speedy affairs, with some live sloppiness but a lot of spirit and neoclassical sharpness; by contrast the second movement sprawls over ten minutes, the slowest I’ve ever heard it. Compare 10:33 to Vasily Petrenko’s 8:46, Leonard Bernstein’s 8:10, or indeed Rudolf Barshai’s 5:43. The scherzo is rather languid, too. All in all a fascinating account of how different it is from the way the symphony is performed today, and it’s worth overlooking the constant audience noise. What may cause distress is the fact that distortion in the tape results in the entire symphony sounding like it is being performed in E rather than E flat!
 
Bohuslav Martin?’s Fourth, a celebratory masterpiece inflected with joy, energy, and inner peace, receives a great performance here (1948). It’s hard to imagine a more thrilling scherzo than Kubelík’s, whirling forward in a great rush of excitement, but by contrast he really milks the gorgeous romanticism of the slow movement, unafraid to play up the different moods - doubt at the beginning, something very like love after 6:00. Belohlávek’s recent recording on Onyx with the BBC Symphony may be preferable in the finale, where the new account’s freer tempos underscore the triumph of the ending, which Kubelík - maybe intentionally - leaves more ambivalent. The recorded sound is sufficient to give the orchestral piano its place, although you will miss some bass lines and timpani and the incredible colors of the opening pages. Supraphon engineers have, as elsewhere, used technology which removes the hisses and pops but at the expense of a slightly constricted acoustic.
 
The disc is rounded out with Martin?’s Memorial to Lidice - a moving rendition which goes more slowly and tragically than many, although Eschenbach’s reading on Ondine is the most anguished I’ve heard - and a novelty, the Stalingrad Cantata of Václav Dobiás. Written in 1945, the cantata for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra is an eleven-minute paean to the Soviet forces, or at least I’m assuming so, because the sung texts are not provided. The music sounds a bit like a ramshackle Nevsky Cantata, with the same wildness and raw masculine energy but without the tunes or distinction. It counts as a welcome rarity, though, because recordings of Dobiás are otherwise basically non-existent.
 
These are valuable historical broadcasts all around, then, from the world premiere recordings of Shostakovich’s Ninth and probably a few other works too, to the Dvorak concerto from the first Prague Spring festival. Rafael Kubelík’s conducting is consistently superb and insightful; his Martin? is energetic but powerful, his Shostakovich like nobody else. This can all be had in more modern recordings - the Dvo?ák symphony from Mackerras or Kubelík himself, the Martin? from Belohlávek or Thomson - but as a two-disc monument to Kubelík’s superb work with the Czech Philharmonic, this can’t be beaten. For a one-CD tribute to that pairing of great artists, though, we must remember the unforgettable Smetana concert they gave after the end of the Cold War.
 
-- Brian Reinhart , MusicWeb International

martinu sym. no. 4 martin turnovsky; a. navarra, cello;ladislav cery, viola; Pavel Stepan, Ilja Hurnik-piano; L. jasek, violin; Czech Phil. Orch.Prague Chamber sym. Orch. ; Martin Turnovsky great czech conductors martin turnovksy

Horn-playing has a long tradition in Bohemia, ranging from the 18th century (J. V. Stich-Punto) to the Tylšar brothers and Radek Baborák. And Premysl Vojta is without question a superlative pursuer of this line. He earned his most remarkable triumph in September 2010 at the ARD competition in Munich (1st prize, the audience award and two other special prizes). Upon receiving the Beethoven Ring at the Beethovenfest in Bonn, he joined the ranks of young stars of classical music (Gustavo Dudamel, Julia Fisher, Lisa Batiashvili, etc.). For his debut album, Premysl Vojta, currently solo horn of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, has chosen pieces by 20th-century Prague modernists. As he himself puts it: “Works by unknown composers who experienced World War II, the German occupation, liberation, occupation by the ‘liberators’ and the bullying by the communist regime. May this recording be a reminiscence of that time and the people who lived through it.” In addition to reflecting the fraught epoch and Slavonic musicality in the Janácek spirit, these works place extreme technical demands on their performers.

It was not long before the baroque composer and violinist in Count Morzin’s court orchestra František Jiránek received the moniker of a “Czech Vivaldi”. Musicologists discovered him only recently and his works are gradually being identified, as his authorship is disputable in some cases. This is because Jiránek was a gifted pupil of his teacher in Venice and his works thus bear strong Vivaldian influence. Musicians are also becoming more and more enthusiastic about the newly discovered composer – besides the ensemble of Jana Semerádová, his promoters include the phenomenal bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, whose unique recording of Jiránek’s concertos (SU 4039-2) was received with great acclaim, and the renowned oboist Xenia Löffler. Despite all unclearness in the attribution of the works and some unusual features (such as the incorporation of the rarely used viola d’amour into Jiránek’s Triple Concerto in A Major) the listeners are certain to find lively and virtuoso music on this recording of hitherto unheard compositions in top-class interpretation: a truly opulent baroque feast.

FOERSTER Violin Concertos: No. 1 in c; 1 No. 2 in d • Ivan Ženatý (vn); Ji?í B?lohlávek, cond; BBC SO • SUPRAPHON 3961 (65:23) Live: London 12/8/2007 1


Jan Kubelík urged Josef Bohuslav Foerster to write his First Violin Concerto, which Kubelík played for the first time in Chicago in October 1910. It’s a grand Romantic work, as ingratiating melodically as Bruch’s or Goldmark’s concertos but colored—or, at least, tinted—with references to the composer’s Czech ethnicity but even more strongly influenced by the virtuoso tradition, which it perhaps owes to Kubelík, who wrote a cadenza for the premiere that bejewels its soaring melodiousness. (The notes also explain that the Concerto served as a sort of test run for Foerster’s fourth opera, The Unvanquished , with its violinist-composer hero.) Ivan Ženatý plays the work’s first movement authoritatively, adding his own cadenza, which differs in style—as so many violinists’ cadenzas do—from the composer’s passages that surround it. Ženatý draws a rich tone from the lower registers of the 1743 Prince of Orange Guarneri del Gesù and a pure and clean sound from its upper ones; such tonal opulence enables him to mine the slow movement’s rich melodic vein. The third movement opens with a triple-time dance-like theme; many virtuoso concertos concluded with dance-like finales, but this one, marked Allegro grazioso , seems more elegantly balletic. Ženatý is at home in the work’s declamatory passages (as at the first movement’s opening) as well as in the ruminative slow movement or in the comparatively genial finale. The engineers have balanced the sonorous orchestral part and the brilliant solo in this live performance (with applause at the end). I believe the performance of the First Concerto on Orfeo 403971 may no longer be available.


The Second Concerto (the program claims to offer the first complete performance of both works), the notes accede, has not claimed the attention of violinists. Sketched in 1917 and 1918 and completed in 1926, the Concerto received its premiere on January 19, 1927. Of a piece with the First Concerto melodically, the Second nevertheless lacks its bravura, relying more heavily on pervasive lyricism. But such ingratiating melodiousness, projected against occasionally gauzy orchestration, should compensate for the Concerto’s lack of brilliance. The first two movements, marked Andante sostenuto and Andante moderato (the second movement flowing almost seamlessly out of the first), finally give way to a concluding Allegro. But while those first two movements hardly lack drama—the orchestra occasionally surges as sonorously as it does in Chausson’s Poème or Delius’s Concerto—the general atmosphere remains ecstatically if intimately tranquil. Even the finale, which begins with a hint of the folk dance, settles back into its characteristic melodic warmth. The recorded sound remains balanced throughout the Second Concerto in a way similar to that of the First, though the studio recording sessions took place on December 4–5, 2007, at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios.


Foerster’s violin concertos offer a continuation of the luxurious melodic flow of those by Bruch, Goldmark, and, especially, Dvo?ák; and Ženatý’s sympathetic performances should provide a warm-hearted introduction to them even for listeners not favorably disposed to the violin music of this period. Very strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

The Belfiato Quintet are yet another exciting Czech chamber ensemble active in the international arena. The members of the young wind quintet perform with renowned orchestras and both as individuals and collectively hav egarnered accolades at competitions. This acclaim, however, has not gone to their heads, with their performances above all revealing their attitude: ''We enjoy it!'' The debut studio album, which they hvae recorded 12 years after the ensemble's foundation, exclusively features Czech music dating from the first half of the 20th century. J.B. Foerster composed the Wind Quintet in 1909 to commission for a virtuoso ensemble, formed by the members of the Wiener Philharmoniker. The work by Janáček's pupil Pavel Haas, written two decades later, bears traces of inspiration by folk music, Janáček, as well as Stravinsky. When listening to the piece, it is difficult indeed to resign oneself to the chilling fact that this immense young talent was silenced for ever at Auschwitz. Leos Janáček had created his wind sextet Youth just five years previously. Owing to the music teeming with joie de vivre, prevailing over languor and melancholia, one is hard pressed to believe that the artist was 70 years of age when he composed it.

The majority of the pieces on this album were composed by Pavel Fischer, formerly the Škampa String Quartet's first violin, whose Moravian musical roots and years with the Škampa Quartet have resulted in remarkable accomplishments. His compositions, inspired by Moravian, as well as Scottish, Balkan and Roma folklore, have earned the quartet enthusiastic responses. Yet the "artificial forms" of classical music have not reduced the sheer emotion, joy, sorrow and nostalgia so purely found in folk music an iota.

The genre-bending Škampa Quartet invited singer Iva Bittová to also participate as a composer in their new project, with a piece titled Hopahop talita.

Younger than Smetana and Dvorak, Zdenek Fibich (1850-1900) is with them a pilgrim founder of Czech national music. Supraphon have already brought us, both in 78 days and more recently, a certain amount of his music, notably excerpts from the opera The Bride of Messina; and we have learnt that his prevailing tone is a dark, grave lyricism. Here now we have a complete opera, on a curious subject that fascinated more than one Czech composer.

The Czech dynasty—so legend had it— was founded by Prince Prernysi and Princess Libuse, each of whom had a council of rulers of their own sex. When Libuse died, her women were denied any share in the rule of the country. They resented this, and with Sarka as one of their Amazonian generals, declared war on the men. One episode in this war—which ended in the destruction of the rebellious women—was the capture by Sarka of Ctirad, one of Premysi's most gallant lieutenants. Sarka had herself bound to a tree, as the bait in an ambush into which Ctirad fell. Fibich adapted the story—you will probably have guessed how: Sarka and Ctirad fall in love, and love proves stronger than loyalty. To save Ctirad's life, Sarka betrays the women.

In the first act we find the spirited Sarka rousing Viasta and her companions to rebellion. The men arrive in the sacred grove to sacrifice ; Premysi sings an eloquent lament addressed to Libuse, and Vitoraz leads the ceremony with the solemnity proper to bass high priests. But the women burst in suddenly like so many angry suffragettes, demanding their rights. Sarka challenges Ctirad to a duel; he laughs at her. War between the sexes is declared. So far the music tends to be low-toned, dramatic in a fairly effective way in the action passages, but not particularly striking.

The heart of the opera is the second act. There is a dramatic prelude, and a fierce scene where Viasta's troops, who have had initial victories, assemble with their spoils including the bloody head of a well-known woman-hater. Then Sarka, with her patrol, prepares the ambush. There is a beautiful aria in which she muses on the hatred for Ctirad which is so nearly love, and this merges into a passage, curiously Straussian in effect, where her companions assure her that she is indeed lovely enough to entrap the warrior. The voices twine and cradle one another in a magical ensemble. Sarka has a second aria, to a " Forest Murmurs accompaniment, as she awaits Ctirad. Later there is a love duet; ecstatic as (like Tristan and Isolde) they realise that their hatred is turned to love, then lyrical as (like many another pair of operatic lovers) they gaze at the night, and at the shining Stars. In the last act Sarka leads the men to the women's stronghold where Ctirad is prisoner. The women are slain, but their bloody ghosts rise up to disturb Sarka, who flees from Ctirad's embrace and hurls herself over a precipice.

- Gramophone [August, 1958]

On two occasions during his tenure as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic (1968-1990) Václav Neumann undertook a major, and beautiful, task – to make a studio recording of one of the best-known and most wonderful symphonies of all time, Antonín Dvorák’s “From the New World”. The first recording was made in early 1972, with the orchestra possessing technical brilliance following Karel Ancerl’s era, yet craving intensive emotionality and romantic flight – which they were duly afforded by their new charismatic chief conductor. The sheer magic of the recording is further enhanced by its analogue format, the technique that at the time enjoyed its apex, splendidly mastered by the recording team at the Dvorák Hall of the Rudolfinum in Prague. Supraphon has now returned to the legendary recording, while having made use of state-of-the art technologies. The legendary recording deserves the utmost care – and a keen listener.

Classical Music

With interpretation, execution, and sound taken in tandem, there is no finer Dvorák cycle than this one.

Václav Neumann's Dvorák cycle certainly stands with the classic sets by Kubelik, Kertesz, and Rowicki, and it's better recorded (by far) than any of them. Still Neumann has been dogged principally by the fact that he was not Karel Ancerl, despite being a fine conductor in his own right. His principal weakness seems to have been a sort of stiffness that could on occasion paralyze his ability to make the music flow (sort of like Horenstein's chronic tempo problems, though on a much smaller scale). Here however it's all smooth sailing. Even where Neumann takes special care over rhythmic detail, such as the five-note accompaniment figures in the First Symphony's opening movement, or in the deliberate but hair-trigger precise finale of the Third Symphony, the result has the effect of giving the music an extra breadth and weight.


Perhaps the best performance in this set, however, is of the gorgeous Second Symphony. Dvorak was right to revise this early work and have it published later in his life, and it is fully characteristic of him. The third movement remains his largest and most melodically abundant scherzo, and who can fail to thrilled at the finale's second subject--a widely ranging melody accompanied by ear-catching, ponticello string tremolos? Neumann is also at his very best here, to say nothing of the incomparable Czech Philharmonic, which offers playing that pretty much eclipses the competition in charm, rhythmic snap, and sheer timbral beauty. Sonically speaking, Supraphon made some of the very best early digital recordings, and so they remain. A must-have if you love Dvorák. [3/1/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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This central panel in Václav Neumann's excellent Dvorák symphony cycle starts out with the inestimable advantage of the Czech Philharmonic in top form, but it won't do to diminish the quality of artistic insight coming from the podium. Take the Fourth Symphony, for example: Listen to how Neumann has the winds in the scherzo emphasizing their dotted rhythms against the triple-time accompaniment, and the increased musical tension this generates. Smart man! The finale takes one of Dvorák's most interesting formal experiments (it's the earliest extant prototype for the Romantic finales of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov's Second and Third Piano Concertos and Second Symphony) and weds it to arguably the least interesting principal tune that he ever wrote. The movement has never sounded better than it does here. Neumann understands the need to soft-pedal the "one-two-three" motive and stress lyrical elements wherever possible, and the result makes a musical silk purse out of a real potential sow's ear.


Both the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies are of course masterpieces all the way through, and from the first sound of those inimitably Czech clarinets that open the Fifth, you know it's going to be smooth sailing. A beautifully flowing slow movement, breezy scherzo, and brilliant finale with a hugely exciting coda characterize an exceptional performance. The same virtues hold true in the Sixth, where Neumann doesn't put a foot wrong. Of course there will be other performances of this glowing work with something special to offer: Ancerl's for example, with this same orchestra, and no one touches Kubelik in the scherzo. But Neumann more than holds his own in this august company, and as regards interpretation, execution, and sound taken in tandem, there is no finer Dvorák cycle than this one. [3/8/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Václav Neumann concludes his remarkable Dvorák symphony cycle on a high note, turning in what is arguably the finest and most consistent set of the last three symphonies since George Szell. All of the competition in this area has problems: Kubelik's Seventh isn't fabulous, and neither is Kertesz's (who did a better "New World" in his earlier VPO rendition). Rowicki, also less good in the Seventh than in the later two works, like Kertesz has an LSO whose playing is no match for that of the Czech Philharmonic. Colin Davis and the Concertgebouw offer a stunning Seventh and a decent "New World", but an unremarkable Eighth. Järvi turns in fine accounts of Nos. 8 and 9, but makes heavy going of the Seventh, and he's cavernously recorded too. Neumann, by contrast, shines in the Seventh, perhaps Dvorák's greatest symphony. His attack on the first movement's climax remains unrivaled, and he milks the finale's tragic foreboding for all it's worth but never lets the music bog down (those marvelous Czech winds help a lot too).


The Eighth is noteworthy for its effortless sense of flow, and also for a finale that, in the Czech tradition of Talich, takes the scherzo variations in tempo yet still has sufficient rhythmic kick to provide an exciting conclusion. Neumann recorded the "New World" Symphony more times than I care to count, his last efforts revealing sadly diminished capacity. This is his best version, a "traditional" performance in the sense that it doesn't bring new revelations to this oft-played symphony, but it's also one whose feeling of "rightness" (note the beautifully relaxed yet seemingly self-propelled Largo and the trenchantly argued finale) married to superb playing places it among the handful of great accounts. Supraphon's first-rate sonics also distinguish this, the most consistently excellent of all complete Dvorák symphony cycles, from the rest of the pack. Supraphon's happy decision to offer the nine symphonies in sets of three also means that you don't have to commit to the whole production until you've had a chance to sample--but sample you certainly should. [3/22/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com