In my home archives lies a sold-but-never-printed program note on the Dvořák Seventh Symphony in D Minor. My article languishes due to a conductor’s illness; the Seventh was axed off the program by his replacement, and thus my note went into oblivion. I’m not particularly upset about it—such happens in commercial writing, and I was paid for my work, after all. Nor is this the only one of my program notes to suffer such a fate; by a strange twist, an earlier note on the same composer’s Sixth Symphony went into limbo, and just last season a particularly felicitous article on the Stokowski orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition also fell victim to a conductor illness. In that latter case, my article actually did make it into print, complete with illustrations and callouts and all the rest, but when the last-minute replacement opted to use the more-familiar (especially to him) Ravel orchestration, there was just barely enough time to remake the program book and substitute Michael Steinberg’s note, an article which did not (as mine did) focus on the many orchestrations and arrangements that have been made of the work over the years.
For some time I’ve held that the fates were kind to me by preventing my Dvořák Seventh article from reaching readers, given that it was a stinker and could very well have damaged my so-far solid reputation as being a much better program annotator than your average bear. Upon re-reading I find it to be undeserving of my scorn; its most glaring shortcoming is an awkward lead. With those opening 330 words replaced, the note wouldn’t be half bad.
I got to thinking about my ill-fated piece as I remembered a dig about the Seventh from commentator Alec Robinson, who complained that the work’s final movement "fails to reach the height of the preceding ones. This may well be because it lacks the rhythmic variety of the corresponding movement of the D major Symphony [No. 6] and is somewhat square in treatment."
All I can say is that Mr. Robinson really needs to hear the new recording from Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, just released by Channel Classics and breathlessly awaiting your company. Over the past several years, the BFO has gone from making extremely good recordings—Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies, Dvořák Legends, Kodaly orchestral works—to releasing performances that blow past everything else available, batting it out of the park with amazing regularity. These days they’re on a roll: a Rachmaninov Second to die for, then two Mahlers—a stellar Fourth followed by a stupendous Second. Then came a Beethoven Seventh that stands right up with Szell’s Cleveland masterpiece in my estimation. Just last year they released a Brahms First coupled with the Haydn Variations. The symphony was remarkable enough—gorgeously paced, employing discreetly spectacular string portamenti—but the Haydn Variations actually reduced me to tears. Never has that winsome work ever been executed with such warmth and panache, or such sheer joy in music-making.
Now the orchestra releases this new Dvořák Seventh, alongside re-releases of their 2001 Eighth and Ninth, formerly on Philips but now licensed to Channel Classics. I consider their Eighth to be the overall most satisfying rendition I know of the work; it offers the snappy pizzazz of Maazel/Vienna without that recording’s underlying hard-edged glint, and the glowing warmth of Vaclav Neuman and the Czech Philharmonic, but offering notably stronger orchestral playing and finer audio. The BFO’s "New World" also pleases me no end.
Nevertheless, the Eighth and Ninth reflect the BFO of nine years ago, and this is a young orchestra; nine years makes a lot of difference. The BFO of 2010 is an orchestra in the fullness of its early maturity, balancing the glories of youth against the judgment of age, led by a conductor whose musicianship puts him right at the top of the profession. The Fischer/BFO Dvořák Seventh reveals the work as the finest non-Brahms symphony of the Brahms era—rich, dramatic, turbulent, sweeping, thrilling, glowing, almost heartbreakingly lyric when required, and ending in blaze of radiance. Oh, there are other memorable performances of this great symphony out there: Szell/Cleveland and Rowicki/London come first to mind. But this is the first one I’ve heard that really nails the last movement—the one that Alec Robinson described as "somewhat square"—rendering it as a magnificent, utterly convincing summation.
In short, the Budapest Festival Orchestra has done it again. I’m starting to think of them as the orchestral world’s version of Apple, or Pixar: somehow always topping themselves, making each new release a reason for rejoicing and an achievement to treasure.
The Fischer/BPO Dvořák Seventh: you gotta hear this thing