Dvorak, a Warm and Witty Melodist
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: September 17, 2004


O this is what the classical record business has come to. Remember the last Mozart year (1991), the last Brahms year (1997), the last Bach year (2000)? Classical labels were all over them with big new projects and reissues.

As you may or may not have noticed, it is a Dvorak year, the centenary of the composer's death. The foundering record industry seems hardly to have noticed or to care. The highest-profile release of recent months was a Sony Classical CD compiling older performances by Yo-Yo Ma (the Cello Concerto and other works), and even Sony didn't make much of it.

True, Dvorak was not Bach, Mozart or Brahms (and more to the point when it comes to respect, not German but Czech). Still, he was Dvorak, one of the most beloved composers of all time, as at least a few major concert presenters are acknowledging in desultory fashion this season: Carnegie Hall in programs scattered about; the New York Philharmonic in its gala opening concert on Tuesday (inevitably, with the "New World" Symphony); the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with two works next month.

Not that anyone is looking for the pointless reduplication that deadens concert life and that was largely responsible for the record labels' plight in the first place.

And fortunately, there is no lack of wonderful Dvorak recordings at least among the major works, though many nooks and crannies remain inadequately explored.

So the classical music critics of The New York Times are providing a guide of sorts with recommendations of favorite Dvorak CD's. (Their selections are on Page 6.) Think of it as a Dvorak year do-it-yourself kit.

- JAMES R. OESTREICH

Here are some favorite Dvorak recordings of the classical music critics of The New York Times. Availability is hard to determine in the current state of the market. Most of the recordings here can be found on Amazon.com or in major record stores. CD's range in price from $11.98 to $16.98 for one CD to $47.98 for a six-CD set. (An introduction appears on Page 1 of Weekend.)

Anthony Tommasini

STRING SERENADE, WIND SERENADE. Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner (Philips 400 020-2, CD).

PIANO CONCERTO. Sviatoslav Richter, pianist; Bavarian State Orchestra, Munich, conducted by Carlos Kleiber (with Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasy; EMI Classics 5 66947 2, CD).

CELLO CONCERTO IN B MINOR. Mstislav Rostropovich, cellist; Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan (with Tchaikovsky's "Rococo" Variations; Deutsche Grammophon 447 413-2, CD).

"RUSALKA." Gabriela Benackova, Wieslaw Ochman, Richard Novak, Vera Soukupova; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Vaclav Neumann (Supraphon 10-3641-2, three CD's).

LIEDER. Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano; Roger Vignoles, pianist (Harmonia Mundi France HMC 901824, CD).

DVORAK'S "New World" Symphony may be his most deservedly famous work, but I'll leave it to colleagues to recommend recordings. My overexposure to the piece began in college, when the instructor of my body-building class played a worn-out LP of the symphony during aerobic exercises. Even today, every time I hear the scherzo, I feel I should be doing jumping jacks.

But I never get tired of another deservedly popular Dvorak work: the Serenade for Strings, an absolutely perfect piece. Dvorak's greatness is too easily ascribed to his achievement in seamlessly weaving elements of Eastern European folk music into concert works. The serenade is a reminder that in all the technical matters of composition Dvorak was a master. The scoring for strings is miraculous: sustained chords are so beautifully voiced that they seem to shimmer. The music is tender and sweet, especially the gentle slow movement, but never sentimental. And has anyone ever written a more wistfully beguiling waltz?

I recommend the richly played and clear-textured account by Neville Mariner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from 1981, available from Philips in a pairing with the Serenade in D minor for winds, a work I love for its playful, almost mock-serious tone.

Dvorak's Piano Concerto has never quite caught on with performers and audiences. Perhaps Dvorak tried to pack too much into the teeming work, which shifts startlingly from bucolic cheeriness to fitful outbursts. Try the 1976 recording with the colossal pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the Bavarian State Orchestra, conducted by Carlos Kleiber, and you may see why I so enjoy this concerto.

Richter finds disarming delicacy and surprising pensiveness in the music. But when things turn spirited, he plays with an incisive attack and sweeping power, matched all the way by the great Kleiber. The EMI release includes Richter's brawny account of Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasy.

With all respect to Yo-Yo Ma, my favorite version of the essential Cello Concerto in B minor is Mstislav Rostropovich's classic 1968 recording with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. The elegiac and impetuous elements of Mr. Rostropovich's playing are intriguingly balanced by the spacious grandeur of Karajan's conducting.

My choice among recordings of Dvorak's enchanting opera "Rusalka" remains the sensitive and idiomatic account with Vaclav Neumann conducting the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus and a winning, mostly Czech cast, headed by the radiant soprano Gabriela Benackova, a Supraphon import that is usually available.

It's an encouraging sign for the future of classical recording when a new CD immediately joins your list of favorites, like Harmonia Mundi's album of Dvorak songs with the mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink and the pianist Roger Vignoles. Though born in Argentina, Ms. Fink is of Slovenian heritage, and she has lived in Prague. She sings these inexplicably little-known songs with stylistic insight and affecting beauty. The rousing Gypsy songs will make you want to dance, which is a lot more fun than doing jumping jacks.

Allan Kozinn

STRING QUARTETS NOS. 12, 13. Lindsay String Quartet (ASV DCA 797, CD).

PIANO TRIOS (4). Beaux-Arts Trio (Philips 454 259-2, two CD's).

PIANO QUINTET (OP. 81), STRING QUINTET (OP. 97). Leipzig String Quartet; Christian Zacharias, pianist; Hartmut Rohde, violist (MDG Gold 307 1249-2, CD).

STRING SERENADE, WIND SERENADE. Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner (Philips 400 020-2, CD).

SLAVONIC DANCES (OPP. 46, 72). Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Ivan Fischer (Philips 464 601-2, CD).

MOST composers as popular as Dvorak have been explored thoroughly. Their best works are familiar to most music lovers.

Yet there is a wealth of spectacular lesser-known Dvorak that is as durable as the big hits and often more treasurable. I encountered the G major String Quartet (No. 13) at a Juilliard String Quartet concert as a student, and I immediately bought the only recording I could find, the rich-toned, idiomatic reading by the Prague Quartet.

If that performance were available on a single disc, it would top this list. Only a sensitivity to readers' budgets prevented the inclusion of the boxed set in which it currently resides (Deutsche Grammophon 463 165-2, nine CD's), although with all 14 quartets and "The Cypresses" in incomparable performances for around $65, it's a bargain.

As individual releases go, the Lindsay Quartet's energetic, quirkily individualistic account is consistently attractive, and it includes the popular "American" Quartet (No. 12), named for its inclusion of themes that suggest spirituals and other touches reminiscent of Dvorak's sojourn in New York and Spillville, Iowa.

Of the piano trios, only the last ("Dumky") approaches warhorse status, yet all four are packed with the singing lyricism that is Dvorak's trademark. The Beaux-Arts Trio, captured in its prime in a 1969 recording, exploits that quality fully but also produces the sharp accents that tap the music's Bohemian charms as well as the furious energy that gives the fast movements of the early trios their visceral appeal.

The Opus 81 Piano Quintet has been copiously recorded, and by some starry names. But a newly released collaboration between Christian Zacharias and the Leipzig Quartet (former members of the Gewandhaus Orchestra) has a winning directness.

The seductiveness of Dvorak's themes often leads musicians to overstate their charms, but Mr. Zacharias and company avoid magnified inflections and let the music make its own case. The String Quintet, another product of Spillville (and of Dvorak's desire to encourage an American musical accent), is less overtly folkish than its contemporaneous cousins, but the pentatonic themes that for Dvorak were a central strand in the DNA of both spirituals and American Indian music are presented in a sumptuous European harmonic cloak.

The two youthful serenades are among Dvorak's loveliest scores. They are in some ways mirror images, with the String Serenade minted in the refinement and sonic heft of the concert hall and the Wind Serenade rooted in the sometimes celebratory, sometimes nostalgic atmosphere of a late 19th-century street party.

The wind work in particular shows the degree to which Dvorak's insistence that American composers look to native folk sources reflected his own accomplishment in creating a distinctively Czech sound. The Neville Marriner account, one of the earliest CD's, has weathered many a catalog purge, with good reason: the performances are beautifully focused and have the right measure of gracefulness and rusticity.

Those qualities, with the emphasis on zest, enliven the two sets of Slavonic Dances. Great, vital recordings of these old favorites are plentiful, and Ivan Fischer's lively 1999 recording shows that there is still plenty of energy and nuance to be found in them.

Anne Midgette

QUARTETS, QUINTETS. Talich Quartet and others (with works by Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bartok and others; Calliope 3229, three CD's).

SYMPHONIES (9). Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Rafael Kubelik (Deutsche Grammophon 463 158-2, six CD's).

"RUSALKA." Gabriela Benackova, Wieslaw Ochman, Richard Novak, Vera Soukupova; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Vaclav Neumann (Supraphon 10-3641-2, three CD's).

SONGS. Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano; Roger Vignoles, pianist (Harmonia Mundi France HMC 901824, CD).

STABAT MATER. Christine Goerke, Marietta Simpson, Stanford Olsen, Nathan Berg; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Robert Shaw (Telarc CD-80506, two CD's).

DVORAK is almost too easy. Wholesome, nonintellectual and prodigally talented, he cranked out reams of top-flight music, skillfully wrought and infused with a folklike palette that adds to its popular appeal. He was a simple man: trained (at least briefly) as a butcher, passionate about train engines and not a great reader (perhaps the reason he kept choosing lousy opera librettos). The requisite tortured-artist story line is absent from his life, apart from moments of personal grief, like the loss of three small children within two years, which found direct expression in his Stabat Mater. Yet his music is utterly urbane, weaving bright colors into big, impressive tapestries of tone and timbre.

I find Dvorak easy to admire and hard to love. He certainly does his best to get around me, sometimes with pure sentiment, breaking out in almost ridiculous sweetness in the second movement of the Piano Quintet in A, as if holding out a flower.

But sweet performances of Dvorak can become cloying. The great interpretations seem to me to have in common a faint rough-hewn quality ！ a warmth, even a slight burr and a solidity ！ that comes out especially in the playing of Czech musicians, who grew up venerating this nationalist master. You hear it in Josef Suk's performance of the Violin Concerto with Karel Ancerl, and you hear it in the Talich Quartet's Opus 81 Piano Quintet or String Quartet No. 12. The excellent Talich set also includes the two final quartets (Nos. 13 and 14), which belong on any Dvorak greatest-hits list.

Rafael Kubelik's benchmark set of the complete symphonies also has some of this solid warmth, although there is no trace of a burr in the crystal-clear playing of the Berlin Philharmonic. There are, of course, countless fantastic recordings of the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies from the likes of George Szell, Leonard Bernstein and Ancerl, but for a desert-island pick there's obvious appeal to the completeness of the set, including the underperformed early symphonies. (Check out the Third.)

Dvorak was not the only composer with a gift for vocal writing who struggled with opera. (See Schubert.) I find even "Rusalka" heavy going on the stage. But while its drama is sluggish, its music is rich and rewarding.

There are two fine recordings on the market. In keeping with my advocacy of Czech performances, I vote for Vaclav Neumann's, which keeps a sense of directness and immediacy even in this lush score and features good Czech singers like Gabriela Benackova and Vera Soukupova. (Others may prefer the deliberate opulence of Charles Mackerras and Ren└e Fleming.)

The songs are a treat, if sometimes a bit of a guilty pleasure, and Bernarda Fink, with a warm mezzo-soprano that she keeps light enough to rise effortlessly and well, joins Roger Vignoles in a fine selection, ranging from a wonderful set of "Love Songs" (Op. 83) to lesser-known early pieces. (For the impressive "Biblical Songs," go to Dagmar Peckova's Dvorak album on Supraphon.)

The Stabat Mater is a little long-winded and not always quite as good as it sounds. (You sometimes feel that you're waiting to discover the Verdi Requiem around the corner.) But the size is necessary to express the scale of emotion the composer evokes. Robert Shaw's last recording captures the force-of-nature quality of Dvorak at his best: like rolling waves or hewn rock, something strong and elemental showing through the music's sophistication.

Jeremy Eichler

CELLO CONCERTO IN B MINOR. Mstislav Rostropovich, cellist; Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan (with Tchaikovsky's "Rococo" Variations; Deutsche Grammophon 447 413-2, CD).

CELLO CONCERTO IN B MINOR. Pablo Casals, cellist; Czech Philharmonic, conducted by George Szell (with Brahms's Double Concerto; Naxos 3694319302, CD).

STRING QUARTETS NOS. 12, 14. Chilingirian Quartet (Chandos CHAN 8919, CD).

PIANO QUINTET (OP. 81), STRING QUARTET NO. 10. Andreas Haefliger, pianist; Takacs Quartet (Decca 466 197-2, CD).

SYMPHONIES NOS. 8, 9. Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Rafael Kubelik (Deutsche Grammophon 447 412-2, CD).

IT may seem surprising that a Czech nationalist composer would write some of his best music thousands of miles from his homeland, but such was the case with Dvorak. Toward the end of his life, while at the peak of his artistic powers, he spent three years in the United States. He was terribly homesick, but he was also inspired to help America find its musical voice and launch its own classical tradition.

That project didn't go very far, but at least Dvorak returned home with a handful of works that would become his most popular for their combination of plainspoken ebullience and bittersweet longing, their twinned reflections of interior and exterior landscapes. That is certainly true of the Cello Concerto, the most generously rhapsodic concerto bequeathed by anyone to the instrument. It has been taken up by most major soloists of recent decades, and with so many recordings to choose from, I couldn't resist including two favorites.

First-time listeners should start with Mstislav Rostropovich's justly famous account with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan. Other cellists give themselves over to the whooshing momentum of this mammoth work, but Mr. Rostropovich often pulls back on the tempo to form self-contained islands of lyricism. One such moment arrives almost 10 minutes into the first movement, when he returns to the opening theme but shifts its former heroism into a beautifully hushed register of memory and rue. Karajan leads the orchestra with sensitivity but also a symphonic forcefulness that can make you forget you're listening to a concerto.

Those who already know the piece through modern recordings may enjoy a visit to one of the monuments of prewar recorded sound: Pablo Casals with the Czech Philharmonic under George Szell in 1937. Historic recordings often derive a special poignance from the way we listen backward: that is, hearing accounts from earlier eras with the retrospective knowledge of all that was still to come. In this case, the Spanish Civil War had already broken out, sending Casals's beloved homeland into chaos and spurring him to embrace a principled musical activism. Heard through modern ears, this recording, with Casals's wiry, intense and unflaggingly noble playing, can sound like an impassioned cry for a continent poised on the edge of the abyss.

Turning to tokens of more idyllic times, we come to the "American" String Quartet (No. 12), written during the blissful summer Dvorak spent among the Czech immigrant farmers of Spillville, Iowa. The Chilingirian Quartet does a fine job here, infusing an elegant style with a deep expressive commitment. More warm and burnished playing comes from the Takacs Quartet and the pianist Andreas Haefliger in the delightful A major Piano Quintet, which predates the American period but still shares some of its hallmarks.

One can't leave that period without a closing nod to the "New World" Symphony, and there are again plenty of great options to choose from. I enjoy the Czech-born conductor Rafael Kubelik's classic version with the Berlin Philharmonic. The interpretation is well conceived, the playing is unabashedly dramatic, and Kubelik shows an obvious affinity for the composer's emotional and musical world.

James R. Oestreich

SYMPHONY NO. 6. Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi (with Janacek's "Taras Bulba"; Decca/London 430 204-2, CD).

SYMPHONY NO. 5, "MY HOME," "HUSITSKA." London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Istvan Kertesz (Decca/London 417 597-2).

THREE OVERTURES (OPP. 91-93). Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch (with Liszt's "Pr└ludes"; Philadelphia Orchestra, CD; www.philorch.org).

"DVORAK DISCOVERIES." Harmonie Ensemble New York, conducted by Steven Richman; others (Music & Arts CD-926, CD).

REQUIEM. Pilar Lorengar, Erszebet Komlossy, Robert Ilosfalvy, Tom Krause; Ambrosian Singers; London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Istvan Kertesz (with Kodaly's "Psalmus Hungaricus"; Decca/London 468 487-2, two CD's).

ALTHOUGH I share the general inclination in the surrounding lists to rely on Czech performers in Dvorak's music, the absence of any in the following discussion says much about the richness and variety of the Dvorak discography.

With Dvorak as with Tchaikovsky, I bow to no one in my admiration and respect for the towering three last symphonies. But they are so much a part of my mental baggage that I more often seek out the charming and flavorful earlier ones.

How to choose from so many favorite reordings of Dvorak's symphonies? Cheat, of course, by tossing in a few ringers.

Christoph von Dohnanyi's version of the Sixth is a gem, made in 1989, when the much-touted chemistry between him and the great Cleveland Orchestra was at its most potent. The piece comes off like a masterwork worthy to stand alongside the big three. But how often do you hear it in concert? I would also turn to Mr. Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra for the "New World" Symphony, a work they consistently made fresh, treating it almost as an outsize chamber work, with lively and engaged interactions.

The Fifth Symphony, though not quite on the level of the Sixth, is also compelling, and I list it here more or less randomly as a blanket endorsement of performances of the orchestral works by Istvan Kertesz, a Hungarian-born maestro who seemed to have just the right temperament for Dvorak (among others). His recordings of the symphonies from the 1960's and early 70's are available as a six-CD set, highly recommended to any who can spare $50 or so.

Another broad-brush recommendation in Dvorak goes to Wolfgang Sawallisch. His EMI recordings of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies with the Philadelphia Orchestra are particularly fine. But I list another Philadelphia recording as an avenue to bring in several indispensable Dvorak works (in addition to the obviously indispensable ones).

The first is "In Nature's Realm," one of a set of three concert overtures (including the popular "Carnival") superbly rendered by Mr. Sawallisch and the Philadelphians. It is quite simply glorious music.

So is the "Czech Suite," though not available at the moment in a standout performance. (But be sure to hear it anyway; you'll get the idea.)

And then there are the serenades. Much as I relish the exquisite String Serenade, I have a special fondness for the clucking of the Wind Serenade. So Steven Richman's recordings of an early Octet version of the String Serenade on "Dvorak Discoveries" is a particular delight: the revenge of the Wind Serenade, as it were. The first lines of the string work, which seems so inevitable and immutable in the final version, emerge here on horn and bassoon, and woodwinds loom large throughout, alongside a string quartet and piano.

I add the Requiem not as a favorite work but as another opportunity to cite Kertesz's mastery and a way to expand the discussion. My favorites among the choral works are the Te Deum and especially the Stabat Mater, and I heartily second the recommendation of Robert Shaw's Stabat Mater elsewhere on this page.

Although Kertesz's performance is typically grand, the Requiem ！ even in relation to the Stabat Mater, itself no model of concision ！ is sprawling and uneven. What's more it lacks much of the drama of the great requiems across the centuries.

Clearly, Dvorak wasn't a fire-and-brimstone kind of guy. That's one of the reasons we love him.