Vienna 1958: Karel Ancerl wasn't simply promoting the nation as a model citizen of Czechoslovakia; rather, wherever he was in the world, he spread his...

Vienna 1958: Karel Ancerl wasn't simply promoting the nation as a model citizen of Czechoslovakia; rather, wherever he was in the world, he spread his very own humanistic attitude. Yet he never forgot his Bohemian roots. He championed the unpopular oeuvre of Bohuslav Martinu in equal measure to being honored for his sublime interpretations of works by Leos Janacek. To this day, his recordings of the music of Antonin Dvorak stand as expressive testaments in sound to a hard-won identity. At the height of his post-war European career, Ancerl liked to visit his friends at the Vienna Philharmonic; not only for 23 concert performances with them by 1970, but above all to record, with them, the epitome of musical freedom. Thus Dvorak's Ninth, the Symphony in e, op. 95, really does sound like it comes From the New World.