In Dvořák's jubilee year (2004), we bring listeners a complete set of the Master's symphonies in a series of remarkable recordings by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague with conductor Vladimír Válek. This set will surely please any enthusiastic classical music listener. The ensemble recording of the symphonies is a first-class calling card of the qualities of this ensemble, published under the license of the Czech Radio. An attractive set of symphonies by Antonín Dvořák!

BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Month May 2010 "Mackerras revels in the opulence of Dvo?ák's orchestra"

You won't find better conducting in this music anywhere. Charles Mackerras finds so many wonderful details in these pieces that it's impossible to list them all, and he does it at all tempos and dynamic levels. Listen to his subtle underlining of rhythm in The Wood Dove's opening funeral march, and compare it to the unrivaled glitter of its central party music. Bask in the woodwind timbres at the opening of The Noonday Witch, and marvel at just how much music Mackerras finds even in the stormy climax of The Water Goblin. It's an unalloyed delight from the first note to the last.

Of course, the Czech Philharmonic plays these pieces magnificently. The sonics, however, are not as brilliant as the performances, and that's not unusual from this venue, with its somewhat cavernous acoustic. Slightly recessed brass and percussion lessen the impact of the climaxes somewhat, but it's awfully hard to quibble when the interpretations are this strong. One programming note: The Golden Spinning Wheel was released previously, as the coupling to Mackerras' equally sterling Dvorák Sixth Symphony, but the other three performances are new, and listeners may well prefer this selection (getting all four works on one disc also represents excellent value). Self-recommending.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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The new standard recordings of Dvorák’s symphonic poems.

This disc is a veritable master-class on how to perform Dvorák’s symphonic poems. Charles Mackerras gets so many details right, and reveals so many others, that few listeners could listen to this album without gaining a greater appreciation of the music. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra has recorded the symphonic poems many times before (under Zdenek Chalabala, Václav Talich, Václav Neumann, Jirí Belohlávek and, I’m sure, others), but most of those sessions were long ago and the orchestra gives no sign of having lost any of its love for Dvorák.
 
This is Dvorák’s most programmatic and most graphic music, based as it is on a cycle of brutal folk ballads by Karel Erben. The stories are darkly entertaining on their own: The Noon Witch, for instance, tells of a village where parents keep their children in line by warning that the Noon Witch will come and get them when they misbehave. The well-meaning elders are then distraught to find (in the fifth minute of the music) that there in fact is a Noon Witch, and she really is eating their children.
 
As bloody as the storylines are, the music is best described as festivals of forward-thinking orchestration, with eerie effects, dark solos for instruments like the bass clarinet, more percussion than is usual for Dvorák, and wide, even wayward rondo structures. The four tone poems, written near the end of the composer’s life, had a significant impact on the music of Leoš Janácek, who conducted the premiere of The Wild Dove in 1898, as well as on the style of the man who led The Wild Dove’s first Viennese performance: Gustav Mahler. It is fun to trace influences and listen for innovations in performances as sensitively conducted, and expertly played, as these. This is especially true because Supraphon’s booklet notes are terrific, combining summaries of each poem’s storyline with analyses of the tone poems’ place in Dvorák’s output and their influence on subsequent composers.
 
As for the playing: The opening of Water Goblin is perfectly judged, the balance of the woodwinds against each other just right as the flutes unveil the main theme. What I love here is how well the Czech Philharmonic can play quiet music: the first minute or so, as the music “fades in” to the first climax, feels exactly right.
 
Mackerras really knows, dare I say like nobody else in this music, how to balance the different orchestral sections; for confirmation, just listen to the subtle but still frightening strokes of the gong and chimes near the end of this piece, over tapping timpani which soon explode into what could be described, tongue in cheek, as fate knocking at the door. Further proof is in the balance of violin and English horn solos in various episodes of The Golden Spinning Wheel.
 
The Czech winds bloom at the onset of Noon Witch, a beam of light after the Water Goblin’s shadowy close. But it is not to last: after the hustle and bustle of the five minutes, which together are just about the happiest music on the whole disc, the low brass cut in with the entrance of the witch. It’s not as effective a show-stopper as on Rafael Kubelík’s recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and indeed I don’t think the subsequent bass clarinet solo is as moody, either, although the trumpets play much more cleanly and the violins really do sing their hearts out around the seven-minute mark. The Noon Witch is a classic illustration of Dvorák’s genius for surprising endings, and Mackerras gets the wild last few seconds perfectly.
 
The opening seconds of Golden Spinning Wheel, with the motoric cellos coupled to gentle cymbal crashes, are almost impossible to resist. This is the longest symphonic poem and the only one with a happy ending; Mackerras turns in the best performance I’ve ever heard. Here are sharp, precise rhythms, resplendent strings in the love music and an operatic pace which generates increasing excitement and drama as the piece proceeds, even in the central episode which sounds like a new Slavonic Dance. Compare this to the relatively tame, unexcitable Simon Rattle account on EMI, and the extra thrill of the Mackerras reading is even more obvious.
 
The Wild Dove, my favorite of the four, draws another terrific performance, with truly huge excitement in the celebratory wedding march, an impassioned love scene, and then a transition into the brutal depths of the story’s close (12:45-13:00) which Mackerras and orchestra handle perfectly. They then make the case more strongly than anyone else that the music which follows is not just elegiac, not just tragic, but thrilling too, even terrifying. And here one can sense genuine sympathy for the plight of the poem’s antihero as she prepares to end her life. The violin solo is more strait-laced than on, say, Kubelík, but overall the Czech Philharmonic is more characterful and indeed more accurate at even faster tempi than the Bavarian Radio orchestra, or the Berlin Philharmonic under Rattle.
 
Throughout the CD the clear recordings allow all manner of orchestral details to shine through, like the tuba part at 11:30 in Water Goblin or the growling basses at 16:28 in Golden Spinning Wheel, and the sound also flatters the huge number of solos Dvorák writes for nearly everyone in the orchestra. One might wish for more prominence for the percussion, but it is not a serious complaint, and indeed it could be argued either way.
 
I approached this disc with high expectations. Charles Mackerras is one of the great interpreters of Czech music, perhaps the most important ever to hail from outside the Czech Republic. As he has in numerous recordings of Dvorák, Janácek, Smetana and Josef Suk before, he amply proves why here. In fact, my expectations have actually been surpassed. This album easily dispenses with Kubelík to become my reference edition for the symphonic poems. The Golden Spinning Wheel was previously released coupled to Dvorák’s Symphony No 6 (a disc I am also very happy to own), but the other three works are in brand-new recordings by an 85-year-old conductor who shows no sign of ceasing to be one of the greatest classical artists of our era.
 
-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

Dvorák's sunny Violin Sonata is a typically lovely work of his maturity, written about the same time as the Violin Concerto, and this performance would be difficult to better. Pavel Šporcl captures the work's lyrical effusiveness effortlessly, but always with that enlivening sense of rhythm that gives Dvorák's innate tunefulness its strength of character. Pianist Petr Jiríkovsky accompanies with what can only be called enthusiastic discretion, yielding to his partner where necessary but never sounding inhibited or excessively modest.

Suk's Four Pieces date from 1900, and unsurprisingly they reveal the influence of Dvorák, the composer's teacher and father-in-law. They are delightful, and already in the Appassionato and the concluding Burleske we can hear something of the composer's darker, moodier personality beginning to emerge. Among the shorter works, the Notturno is the same piece later arranged for strings, after originating in the early Fourth String Quartet and spending some time in the String Quintet No. 2 (with double bass). It's lovely no matter how you hear it, and Šporcl also has a blast with the Kreisler arrangements of the Slavonic Dances. Ideal sonics complete an irresistible release.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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This second release from young Czech conductor Jakub Hrusa is definitely better than his first one. The Prague Philharmonia is very much a chamber orchestra, and so you won't find the weight that, say, Dorati brings to the American Suite (Decca) or Belohlávek enjoys in the splendidly evocative Fantastic Scherzo (Chandos). But aside from the second movement of the Dvorák, which really needs a sharper attack, there's no lack of energy--and there's plenty of attractive detail (particularly in the wind parts) that often goes unnoticed in performances with larger ensembles. Still, I'm not giving up the power and luxurious color of my big-orchestra versions anytime soon.

Indeed, the Suk Serenade is extremely beautiful as well as unusually lively. Despite its appealing lyricism and melodic charm it's a tough piece to bring off. With its sequence of moderately paced inner movements, monotony is an ever-present threat, even in versions coming from Czech performers. Hrusa characterizes the work quite effectively, with the necessary lightness as well as rhythmic point. The program also has been very intelligently chosen: none of these pieces is that familiar, but all are very beautiful and worth hearing, so this disc may well fill a gap in many Czech music collections. Warm, well-balanced sound completes this recommendable package.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This recording, although relatively new, is one of the rarest gems in the Supraphon archives. After the initial positive reactions the extraordinary quality of the recording was confirmed by prestigious Gramophone Awards; in addition to winning the chamber music category, the young ensemble also brought home from London the top prize: Recording of the Year. Eight years after the first edition, Supraphon is releasing this delicacy for true audiophiles. Dvorák’s mature works perhaps best mirror the ensemble’s extraordinary qualities: the equilibrium between precision and spontaneity, the remarkable ensemble playing, and the solo potential of all of the individual players. At the end of the draft of his Quartet Op. 96, Antonín Dvorák wrote the comment: “I’m satisfied; it went quickly…” Soon after the “New World Symphony”, he composed one of the most beautiful of all string quartets while still in America – and the critics were unsparing in their praise. For the Pavel Haas Quartet, both the “American” Quartet and the following Quartet Op. 106, the first work composed after the composer’s return home from America, are literally affairs of the heart. According to the Sunday Times: “In this repertoire, they are simply matchless today.” Dvorák might even have written his comment “I’m satisfied” about this recording as well.

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Includes work(s) by Josef Suk. Ensemble: Prague Philharmonia. Conductor: Jakub Hrusa.

Faith in God was for Dvorák the cornerstone on which he built his own life and work, hence it comes as no surprise that a number of his seminal pieces are within the domain of sacred music, and frequently linked with a strong personal story.

The first version of the oratorio Stabat Mater came into being after the death of his first-born daughter. In the wake of the triumph of its London premiere, Dvorák received more commissions from the UK, which gave rise to other paramount compositions: The Spectre's Bride, Requiem and Saint Ludmila.

The instigation for Te Deum came from New York, where following the premiere of the New World Symphony Dvorák wrote the Biblical Songs, the apex of his oeuvre of this genre. The set also contains pieces that have been seldom performed (the cantata The Heirs of the White Mountain, Psalm 149 in the previously unreleased recording made by the conductor Václav Neumann.).

At the same time, this 8-disc collection within the Dvorák series, featuring gems from the Supraphon archive, showcases superlative artists and performances in sensitively re-mastered sound.

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I consider this recording of Dvorak's cello concerto the best I have ever made. And even though later on I recorded the concerto another seven times, it is the one that means the most to me. Throughout my life I have remained faithful to that which Vaclav Talich taught me.' - Rostropovich Supraphon returns to the most celebrated recording of the most frequently performed cello concerto and it's release, directly mastered in pure analogue, is a very special treat for lovers of the warm, rich vinyl sound. A delicacy for true connoisseurs!

Seven years after their triumph with quartets by Dvorák, the Pavel Haas Quartet are making a triumphant return to Dvorák’s music. For the recording of the quintets, they have invited two guests: the pianist Boris Giltburg (winner of the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Competition) and Pavel Nikl, a founding member of the Pavel Haas Quartet. Dvorák composed his Second Piano Quintet at his beloved summer residence Vysoká late in the summer of 1887. The famed critic Eduard Hanslick received the work’s performance in Vienna enthusiastically: “It is one of his most beautiful works. It is real Dvorák.” The String Quintet, Op. 97, although younger by just six years, represents an entirely “different Dvorák”. After the New World Symphony and the American Quartet, it is Dvorák’s third work composed while in North America. And what did Hanslick have to say this time? “It is perhaps the simplest, most natural, and happiest music composed since the days of Haydn.” The degree to which the Pavel Haas Quartet feels at home with Dvorák’s music is shown by the many awards their recordings have received (Diapason d’Or, BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month, Gramophone Award nomination). "Another Pavel Haas Quartet [album], another triumph.” (Gramophone)

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This is the Smetana Trio playing Dvorák, not to be confused with the Dvorák Trio playing Smetana. Such is life in the world of Czech chamber music. But seriously, Supraphon alone has an abundance of recordings of these works, and no wonder. The F minor and Dumky trios probably are the two finest works in the trio medium from the second half of the 19th century, and they make ideal disc-mates, one a sort of apotheosis of Dvorák's work in traditional forms, the other an innovative and path-breaking essay in his popular nationalist idiom. This stupendous new recording rivals the celebrated Suk Trio interpretations for the same label both in technical mastery and interpretive insight; in short, it is second to none.

The program opens with the Dumky Trio, and right from the start you can tell that this is going to be a great performance. Passion and spontaneity unite with rhythmic precision and a real feeling for the dance. Listen to the natural rubato in the fourth movement that prevents the recurring march rhythms from ever turning stiff or mechanical (and notice how much this music resembles the finale of Shostakovich's Second Trio). I loved the lightness of rhythm in the next piece: so often its skipping 6/8 rhythm becomes an excuse to create a chamber version of Wagner's descent into Nibelheim. Not here, where careful attention to dynamics and a flowing tempo create an effortless feeling of movement. There isn't a second in this performance where you feel the music should be played any other way, and no praise can be higher than that.

If anything, these qualities are even more evident in the great F minor trio. The players fling themselves into the first movement with almost dangerous abandon--but notice how perfectly in tune the opening octaves are, and how perfectly balances are maintained even in the most turbulent episodes in the development section. As in the previous work, the scherzo benefits from the ensemble's rhythmic acuity; but it's the slow movement that's really special here. It's not only beautifully paced and phrased, but the ensemble obviously took as much care with transitions as with the melodies, and the result has a seamless continuity that belies the impression in less-adept performances of a movement consisting of a disjointed stream of incredibly pretty tunes.

In the finale, happily taking Dvorák's "con brio" admonition literally, the ensemble sails into the coda with such enthusiasm that the music seems self-propelled. The final turn to the major in the coda is absolutely thrilling, and the closing bars offer the ultimate in musical satisfaction. I started listening to this disc with the slow movement, thinking to sample a bit here and there, but the playing was so gripping that I played the disc through to the end, then went back and listened again from the beginning. It's that good, and the sonics have a true-to-life immediacy that permits these spellbinding interpretations to register with maximum impact. Without question, this is a very great recording, an essential acquisition whether you already love this music or just want to get to know it better.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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