The recordings made by Václav Neumann, the charismatic music director of the Czech Philharmonic from 1968, form one of the cornerstones of the symphonic repertoire...

The recordings made by Václav Neumann, the charismatic music director of the Czech Philharmonic from 1968, form one of the cornerstones of the symphonic repertoire in Supraphon’s archive. The majority of listeners, however, will not be familiar with the albums dating from the prior 1953-68 period. Neumann already enjoyed international renown by the time he became head of the Czech Philharmonic. Under his baton, the splendid Prague Symphony Orchestra made the very oldest recordings of Dvořák’s early symphonies (Nos. 1, 2 and 4), a recording of Trojan’s orchestrated version of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, while the Czech Philharmonic recorded Mahler’s enchanting song cycles and major international and Czech modern works – by Messiaen (with the composer’s wife Yvonne Loriod at the piano), Bořkovec andSommer. This set symbolically closes with Dvořák’s Nocturne, recorded by Neumann with the Czech Philharmonic in 1968, mere weeks after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by forces of the Warsaw Pact. A number of these unique and sensitively remastered recordings are being released on CD for the very first time.