Dvorak's Den

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Piano quintets....any recommendations (primarily for the second of the two). I have, and really enjoy, Curzon with the Budapest Quartet, but maybe I should have one in more uptodate sound.

I may be exceeding the limits of my authority (since I haven't heard many versions), but if you like Curzon/Budapest, you may also like Curzon/Wiener Oktett (Decca, made about 1960).

Those late quartets are great, but I've only heard one version of each (Prazak for #14, Pacifica for #13).

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

RIP Sir Charles



I've been listening to this marvelous disc in memory of Mackerras. It didn't seem to get too much attention, but it's one of my favorite Dvorak discs. The Symphonic Variations is one of D's best large-scale orchestral works, really good all the way through. The other pieces are just as fine though less ambitious.

Also, this recording captures better than any I've heard what the CzPO actually sounds like in the Rudolfinum (since they were my local orchestra for a couple of years, I'm qualified to make that judgment!).

[Mirror Image]

I just pulled out this great 2-CD set and forgotten how masterful it is:





LONG LIVE SZELL!!!!

[Brian]

Can anyone recommend a really good Dvorak biography?

Or, if you have such a book, can you tell me: did the young Dvorak (say pre-1870) know the music of Jan Wenzel Kalliwoda? What about Liszt's tone poems?

[hornteacher]

Can anyone recommend a really good Dvorak biography?

Or, if you have such a book, can you tell me: did the young Dvorak (say pre-1870) know the music of Jan Wenzel Kalliwoda? What about Liszt's tone poems?

Honestly the best one I've come across is not a book at all but an audio biography on 4 CDs.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QQV1UQ/ref=dm_sp_alb?ie=UTF8&qid=1280548381&sr=8-1

[otare]

I have on LP: Rusalka, Armida, The Jacobin (saw it in Zürich, too), and Kate and the Devil.
on CD: The Stubborn Lovers (boy and girl gotta get to meet to know they are meant for each other kind of story), The King and the Charcoal Burner (abridged), and The Cunning Peasant.
If you like the strong folk elements in Smetana's The Bartered Bride, Lortzing's Zar un Zimmermann and Moniuszko's Halka, Dvorak's operas have a similar appeal..   The Stubborn Lovers is complete on one disc so would make a good choice for further listening.
Dmitri is also available on CD, I've not seen Vanda or Alfred listed.

Vanda used to be available on Supraphon - SU 3007-2. Recording from 1951 with:

Drahomira Tikalová, Stefa Petrová, Beno Blachut, Karel Kalas, Borek Rojan, Ludmila Hanzalikové, Václav Bednar, Zdenek Jankovsky
Praha Radio's kor / Jiri Pinkas
Praha Radio's orkester / Frantisek Dyk

I have the CD, but haven't heard it for a very long time.  I found this on amazon.com:

[Brian]

This edit is part of my general campaign to get people to realize that Dvorak's influence on Brahms is underrated, and Brahms' influence on Dvorak is overrated. Next step in the battle: a MusicWeb review I'll be submitting tomorrow, blasting Marin Alsop for her new recording of the Seventh, in which she sadly attempts to "Brahmsify" the music.

Would love to read that Brian as I happen to agree with you.

And, on my birthday (or the day after my birthday, in England!), MusicWeb has finally published my review of Marin Alsop's Dvorak 7/8.

It is quite a long essay. Here are relevant excerpts on the non-Brahms-ness of Dvorak's Seventh:

[Alsop] was evidently trained to believe the common description of this work as a Brahms symphony outfitted in Czech garments; she sees this as Dvorák's reply to the Germanic tradition. As a consequence, there are passages of this reading which frankly very successfully make the music sound like it was written by Brahms himself.

How is this achieved? First, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has a generous string tone but rather anonymous winds. Alsop and the recording engineers both play to the strengths of the orchestra by making this a string symphony with accompaniment. Second, Alsop softens the edges, introducing legato phrasing in places where I would rather hear staccato. Even when the playing is sharper, it lacks fire.

Third, some of the curiosities of Dvorák's orchestration are glossed over; whither the horns and their quirky part at 8:49 in the first movement? For that matter, where are the horns at 5:00 on the same track? Fourth, at the faster tempos which we have here, woodwind phrases which seem spontaneous in the more idiomatic readings of Suitner, Kubelík and Bernstein instead sound glib or premeditated. The flute lines at 3:21, 4:54 and 5:30 (first movement again) epitomize this false spontaneity; they sound rather like a politician delivering a joke which has been written by a panel of ghost writers.

Fifth, Alsop glosses over what I consider to be the main idea of the first movement: the disturbing, out-of-place three-note cell which disrupts the main theme as early as 0:13. It is not really a melodic idea; it appears, instead, as a rhythmic one, taking up a variety of pitches and intervals over the course of the movement, but always with common traits: three notes long, a disruption of the goings-on, and ending on an unsettling chromatic note. Some of the appearances of this motif in the first movement include (timed to Alsop's recording): 0:21, 0:25, 0:39, 0:47, 1:30-1:40, 1:53, 1:57, 2:02 (the listener may continue at his or her own pleasure).

Why is this motif important? The whole drama is founded upon it! The entire movement is a quest by the musical materials to find some way to resolve this unresolveable sequence of notes. And they finally do resolve at the very end, at 9:58, thus bringing about the final dying chords. The conflict generated by this little cell of material inspires the first big climax of the movement, leads to the second subject, and then founds much of the development as well as the entire coda. Alsop consistently underplays this idea, from that muffled horn at the 21-second mark to the headlong rush through the coda, which ceaselessly repeats the idea in all its various guises.

The result is a performance which is not particularly bad, I suppose, and which will not disappoint newcomers to the symphony, but with which, to put it bluntly, I disagree. Maybe I am prejudiced - Dvorák has long been my favourite composer - but this symphony is not Brahms in Czech clothing. It is Dvorák himself, in his own voice, at his most unsettling, dramatic, and personal.... Marin Alsop very clearly has a distinctive view of how Dvorák's Seventh Symphony should go, and I firmly disagree with it. This is not Brahms' Fifth. Dvorák composed a jarring, even frightening score full of idiosyncrasies, music which should unsettle and confound expectations. The dissonances of the outer movements are meant to be disturbing, not merely distracting. The final coda is nearly apocalyptic in its weight. And the sheer number of tunes and thematic ideas in the Seventh is just as impressive as in the sunnier Eighth. If only Ms Alsop understood.

Please note that I do NOT mean to say that Brahms cannot be frightening, jarring, or tragic.

[hornteacher]

Nice review.  Well thought out and in my opinion, accurate.

[MishaK]

Just discovered Dohynani's Cleveland/Decca Dvorak through the 7th which I got at my local used CD store for $2! What a superb interpretation! I never realized how much Dvorak could benefit from desentimentalizing and taut rhythmic drive. May have to go back to the store and get 8 & 9 as well.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Just discovered Dohynani's Cleveland/Decca Dvorak through the 7th which I got at my local used CD store for $2! What a superb interpretation! I never realized how much Dvorak could benefit from desentimentalizing and taut rhythmic drive. May have to go back to the store and get 8 & 9 as well.

I've got the Double Decca of that, with all 3 symphonies. I never listen to the New World (burned out on that sym. during my formative years), but the 8th is similar to the 7th and just as good - a rather "Germanic" sounding approach, lots of energy and drive.

[MishaK]

I've got the Double Decca of that, with all 3 symphonies. I never listen to the New World (burned out on that sym. during my formative years), but the 8th is similar to the 7th and just as good - a rather "Germanic" sounding approach, lots of energy and drive.

I just got the 8th and listened to it. Yes, drive, incisiveness, but still quite warm. I wouldn't call it a Germanic approach at all. It's lacking that typically German sound built from the bass upward. It lacks that weightiness. I would never qualify Dohnyani as a typically German conductor. He's rather atypical in a number of ways.

[Brian]

My new MusicWeb assignment is the London Philharmonic Orchestra's release of a 1992 concert with Charles Mackerras conducting the Dvořák 8th symphony. This is somewhat daunting as I also own the Philharmonia's release of Mackerras conducting the 8th live, and the Supraphon release of Mackerras in Prague... conducting the 8th live.

At some point soon, then, I face the admittedly wonderful-sounding task of replicating Sarge's ongoing "Karajan v Wand Deathmatch" - but this time, the deathmatch will be Mackerras v Mackerras v Mackerras! 

[eyeresist]

Who will win?

I just noticed your notice re Alsop in the 7th and 8th. I too found that release disappointing, although I didn't analysise my reaction to the extent you did. She just seemed "wrong", stiff where she should be flexible and vice versa, and the orchestra not as rich-sounding as it should be with Dvorak's writing. Too often, critics will give high marks to well-recorded, competent performances of repertoire they are not familiar with, when they should be more questioning (sadly, for many critics Dvorak's 7 and 8 do seem to be "obscure").

Can I ask how you rate Pesek's cycle BTW? I think overall it is the most successful one I've heard, particularly across the earlier works, and he manages to get the Scousers sounding like Czechs, no mean feet.

[Daverz]

My new MusicWeb assignment is the London Philharmonic Orchestra's release of a 1992 concert with Charles Mackerras conducting the Dvořák 8th symphony. This is somewhat daunting as I also own the Philharmonia's release of Mackerras conducting the 8th live, and the Supraphon release of Mackerras in Prague... conducting the 8th live.

At some point soon, then, I face the admittedly wonderful-sounding task of replicating Sarge's ongoing "Karajan v Wand Deathmatch" - but this time, the deathmatch will be Mackerras v Mackerras v Mackerras! 

He also recorded the 8th with the Hamburg Philharmonic.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=mackerras+hamburg+dvorak&x=0&y=0

[mc ukrneal]

My new MusicWeb assignment is the London Philharmonic Orchestra's release of a 1992 concert with Charles Mackerras conducting the Dvořák 8th symphony. This is somewhat daunting as I also own the Philharmonia's release of Mackerras conducting the 8th live, and the Supraphon release of Mackerras in Prague... conducting the 8th live.

At some point soon, then, I face the admittedly wonderful-sounding task of replicating Sarge's ongoing "Karajan v Wand Deathmatch" - but this time, the deathmatch will be Mackerras v Mackerras v Mackerras! 

I have a disc of him counducting Dvorak 7&9 with the LPO. It is outstanding. I can't imagine the 8th is any different. I was concerned I might bias you, but having two other versions by him - we'll you are already doomed on that front. When you have formed an opinion, I can tell you what an old Penguin guide thought if you are interested.

[cilgwyn]

Love the comparison with Lortzing. Dvorak's 'deeper' and,generally speaking,a far more 'important' composer,but Lortzing,at his best,with all his limitations is so d*** good at what he does. Scores like 'Der Wildschutz','Zar und Zimmermann','Der Opernprobe' and 'Der Waffenschmied' really cheer me up. And he wrote so beautifully for voices.
Dvorak's sunnier opera scores certainly share a similar sense of fun and zest for life. Although I really wouldn't like to compare their command of the orchestra,they both have,for want of a better term, a 'folksy' charm.

[cilgwyn]

Talking about folk opera's. I just snapped up the original 2cd emi studio cd reissue of Kienzl's 'Der Evangelimann' on ebay for an unusually reasonable price. Once more popular than 'Hansel and Gretel'. Now that's a rare one. Not a masterpiece I know,but the cast are starry,bit's I've heard sound rather nice & I must confess to being quite partial to some of those folksy opera's by lesser known German composers. Marschner,Flotow and Nicolai,et al. (Nicolai's arguably the best of the lot).
Anyway,back to Dvorak........

[Brian]

Birthday boy!

By the way, eyeresist, I haven't heard the Pesek cycle yet. Really looking forward to its appearance on Naxos Music Library soon, especially based on that word.

[DavidW]

I'm knee deep in Tchaikovsky orchestral suites, so I'll celebrate his b-day soon but not today.

Dvorak's symphonic poems are neat, I should listen to those.

[Brahmsian]

Birthday boy!

By the way, eyeresist, I haven't heard the Pesek cycle yet. Really looking forward to its appearance on Naxos Music Library soon, especially based on that word.

That's the set I have, Brian!  Love it.     1/2 are with Czech Philharmonic, and the other 1/2 are with Royal Liverpool PO.