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DVORAK: Symphony No. 6 in D, Op. 60. Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88. With the two most collectable versions of Dvorák's complete symphonies missing from the copy of Schwann/Opus on my shelf --Witold Rowicki's on Philips, István Kertesz's on London [but wait! See an addendum], both featuring the London Symphony Orchestra from the '60s and early'70s --I found only Kubelik's DGG edition with the Berlin Philharmonic, likewise a vintage production, originally in analog stereo, and a Naxos box of Stephen Gunzenhauser's Slovak Philharmonic performances from the late '80s and 1990. Kubelik was in a manic period when he made the Berlin set—too often over the top to be heard more than once or twice—while Gunzenhauser (the Delaware Orchestra's long-time music director) is sincere but pedestrian, compared to the best of his competition now or ever. Individually, Supraphon continues to list the late Vacláv Neumann's CD versions from the 1980s with the Czech Philharmonic—painstaking, idiomatic, uneccentric, and remastered I hope (the initial releases by way of Denon featured untypically hard, harsh sound). Nikolaus Haroncourt is in the midst of a complete set with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on Teldec (none heard, none wanted to be heard; I don't like Harnoncourt much more than I like Neemi Järvi). Now it develops that Myung-Whun Chung is conducting all nine, disc by disc, with the Vienna Philharmonic. To a previous coupling of 3 and 7, they've added 6 and 8 in Musikvereinsaal sound—mahogany-rich, beautifully balanced, muscular where need be, almost in your face. Korean-born Chung is no novice in this repertory; he was recording Dvorák symphonies for BIS in Gothenburg before his career escalated big time at the Paris Opéra. I don't know the BIS discs, or DGG's 3+7, but this newest coupling is at once shapely and powerful, although not quite Bohemian (a quality as difficult to define verbally as it is to conduct). Ironically, the self-governing Vienna Philharmonic was stubbornly anti-Czech while Dvorák was alive—they refused, for example, to play the Seventh Symphony that Hans Richter commissioned. But then, they were anti-Bruckner, too, and detested Mahler's music during his three seasons as their music director (did I mention anti-semitic, too, as well as pro-Nazi later on?). Chung scrupulously observes the repeats in both ingratiatingly nationalistic works, and his tempi are what the composer asked for (the concluding movement of No. 8, for example, is marked Allegro ma non troppo, although most conductors take it too fast, Kubelik included). If I still prefer the Czech Philharmonic's indigenous sound in this music, no one has conducted them in recordings of Chung's interpretive caliber since Neumann. Recommended. But wait! This bulletin just in from REB: Decca is reissuing all of the late Kertesz's Dvorák recordings in a single box, budget priced. The performances are collectively volatile—with an incomparably vivacious Fourth Symphony scherzo—although sometimes jet-age swift. But he got the rhythms right, and mastered the Czech master's native vocabulary. I continue to prefer Rowicki (who was Polish, and still in limbo, whereas Kersetz was Hungarian) but either one is preferable to Kubelik's febrile "take" or Gunzhauser's plodding. How Decca has remastered the Kertesz/LSO sound remains to be heard, if and when.
R.D.(Sept. 2000) |