I read a lot of CD reviews. I'm not sure if that's a statement or a confession. Maybe a bit of both. In my defense (if that's necessary) I can say that I like to keep up with the latest releases, so review sites provide me with a handy resource. Amidst the endless yards of verbiage, the me like and me no like tarted up with cosmetic review-speak, the vendettas and the obsessions, the posturing and preening, the waspishiness, the picky fault-finding, the trivialities, and the occasional flashes of genuine musicianship, I find certain motifs, statements that in some reviewers are as predictable as the sunrise.
The most pervasive statement arises when the CD in question consists of music from some utterly obscure composer. Certain labels, particularly CPO, Chandos, and Naxos, have done yeoman duty in bringing this neglected music back to light. Sometimes it's worth hearing. Sometimes it isn't. But you can be certain that, somewhere in a review of the recorded symphonies of 19th-century composer Gottfried Scheiderbach von Donnerundblitzen, you'll come across a statement along the lines of it's a disgrace, really, that these symphonies aren't better known!
An amusing variant on the above: the reviewer assumes that the reader has intimate knowledge of the Donnerundblitzen symphonies and has practically memorized every detail of the two other extant recordings, both of them off-air dubs of Romanian radio broadcasts: Needless to say, most listeners will prefer Heinrich Steblin's magisterial rendition with the Orkester der Spitzenballen auf Rhine, but Sir Geoffrey Cardellian's new outing might challenge some long-held notions about the tempo of the Scherzo movement which is, as we all know, usually performed with valved horns instead of the natural horns that would have been available to Donnerundblitzen and the Schmakerdunderberg court orchestra.
It occurs to me that there are far better candidates for the this-ought-to-be-better-known trope. Topping my list: the symphonies of Antonín Dvořák.
That's right: you read the sentence correctly. I said Antonín Dvořák. Not some guy from Missouri who teaches at the Joplin Community College and just happens to have the same name as the illustrious Bohemian master. I mean the real guy, the Czech guy, the glorious composer who so lights up the late Romantic sky.
How could anything by Dvořák fall into the this-ought-to-be-better-known category? I submit his symphonies as Exhibit A. Think about it for a minute: most folks with at least a smattering of musical knowledge know that Dvořák wrote nine symphonies, just like Bruckner and Mahler and that what's-his-name guy from Bonn who settled in Vienna. Dvořák's best-known symphony, and one of the most familiar symphonies of all time, is in fact his Ninth, written in the inspiration of his American sojourn and nicknamed the "New World" Symphony. If the "New World" is No. 9, then it follows that it had eight predecessors.
Now then: how many of those nine Dvořák symphonies do you actually know? I'll tell you right off that the normative answer is three—i.e., symphonies 7, 8, and 9. All three are acknowledged masterpieces, with the critical nod usually going to Symphony No. 7 in D Minor as Dvořák's supreme masterpiece in the genre. I'm not about to argue that; for me the Dvořák D Minor, with its brooding intensity and heaven-storming finale, is one of the glories of the orchestral repertory.
But is Symphony No. 7 the first really good Dvořák symphony, and all the rest merely warmups best left unheard? Absolutely not. In fact, they offer buckets, gallons, and chests full of treasure. And they're not by some obscure somebody. They're right there, under our noses. They've been right there all along.
Consider symphonies 1 through 6, therefore. I can tell you right off that the first two aren't anything to write home about. We have them only by a fluke; Dvořák meant to destroy all traces of their existence but he slipped up by sending copies to friends and associates. Those copies popped up in the 20th century. Both are excessively long. There are fine moments scattered throughout, but all in all they're curiosities, valuable only for the light they shed on Dvořák's later development.
But with Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, written seven years later in 1873, we get the Dvořákian Full Monty. Symphony No. 3 is a delight, tautly constructed out of a few motivic seeds, propulsive and lyrical and ear-tickling and ingratiating, just as a full-monty Dvořák symphony ought to be. Just three years before Brahms revitalized the symphonic genre with his long-gestating Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, here is Dvořák giving us an example of the late Romantic symphony in full flower on the eve of that transformation, displaying all the imagination, power, and technical skill that would bring him Brahms' attention and, before long, admiration.
If Symphony No. 3 presents the listener with a delightful discovery, Symphony No. 4—written just one year later, in 1874—could well have the impact of a revelation. Dvořák's earlier D Minor symphony deftly combines a yin-yan approach to construction, in its first movement placing a growly and menacing primary theme in opposition to an achingly lovely waltz-like secondary theme in B-flat Major, Beauty and the Beast, with the Beauty triumphing (naturally) at the end. There is nothing experimental or early or underdeveloped about the Dvořák Fourth: it is a fully-realized late Romantic symphony, unmistakably Dvořákian, radiant and inspiring.
The chipper and cheery Symphony No. 5 in F Major starts edging into visibility amongst music lovers. Those listeners with exceptionally broad experience tend to speak of it affectionately, almost in terms of a private pleasure. A good friend of mine expresses his partiality for the Dvořák 5th in terms almost more like a confession. But there's no reason to be secretive or furtive about enjoying this most amiable and lovable of symphonies. From its bubbly opening tune, really just a well-turned F Major arpeggio, through the spirited energy of the first movement to the tippy-tappy Allegro molto finale (given some grit by little frissons of minor mode amidst all the major-key cheer) only the biggest grouch in the world could fail to love it. Let a thousand Dvořák Fifths bloom!
I suppose the radiant D Major sixth symphony stands at the threshold between the obscure and the known in the Dvořák symphonies. As of 1880, Dvořák's life had been transformed by his association with Brahms, and his musical horizons had been expanded by the symphonic vision of the Brahms C Minor Symphony. Brahms' 1878 Symphony No. 2 in D Major is without doubt the Dvořák Sixth's godparent. Every once in a while some egghead disses the Dvořák Sixth as being little more than a Brahms Second wannabee, but that's just sour grapes. Certainly Dvořák was powerfully influenced by the Brahms 2nd, but this is no slavish imitation. Instead, the work pays homage to the Brahms by its choice of key, orchestration, and even layout of the movements, but from first to last the Dvořák Sixth is an independent, individual work. Opening with a quintessentially Dvořákian figure that always seems right on the edge of becoming a folk dance, the Sixth boasts one of Dvořák's all-time great Scherzo furiant movements, its blazing cross-rhythms enhanced by minor mode and swirling string figures. Don't even bother trying to get through it without foot-tapping, head waving, or even getting up and dancing around the living room. (I don't recommend that last in a concert hall, though.) And the finale—wowza. Sure, it's clearly modelled on the Brahms 2nd's finale, but what a glorious spirit Dvořák brings to the proceedings! Brass players have reason to value this work for the finale's coda alone; Dvořák gives them some truly shining moments in the sun.
Oddly enough, the better-known Dvořák symphonies aren't always that well served in recordings, or in concert for that matter. I rather suspect that for many conductors and orchestras, a case of just-the-Dvořák-New-World-again syndrome strikes and drops a sodden damper over what could have been a memorable experience for all concerned. Finding a really satisfactory recording of the New World symphony isn't all that easy. Typically I use the third movement Scherzo as my litmus test, given the movement's seemingly contradictory demands of being energetic without stridency, of giving all the glow of a folk festival without turning hysterical, while at the same maintaining its composure as a symphonic movement. Not easy.
The extremes provide a worthwhile illustration. Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic put down a big, cushioned New World on Deutsche Grammophon in the mid-1970s. For Karajan haters, this is the Karajan to hate. There's hardly a trace of Dvořák's earthy vitality, all of it lacquered and coiffed and smothered under a layer of expensive tufted fabric. Karajan's Scherzo is like watching a folk festival from the air-conditioned and sealed-off retreat of a Cadillac stretch limousine with tinted windows.
Karajan's polar opposite is Leonard Bernstein's mid-1960s recording with the New York Phil, on Columbia. If Karajan goes all Park Avenue, Lenny heads straight for Times Square. Driving, propulsive, and ultimately exhausting, this is a Dvořák Scherzo that sounds almost as though our folk aren't dancing so much for joy but out of terror for their very lives. The hands-down fastest tempo ever (it clocks in at 30 seconds shorter than the average), and characterized by a blazingly virtuoso New York Philharmonic pushed to the very bleeding edge of technical capability, there's no denying the visceral thrill of Lenny's conception, even disfigured as it is by Columbia's glassy and artifical audio. It's a hell of a performance, no two ways about it. For this listener, it's about 90% Bernstein and 10% Dvořák.
Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw represent the high-class middle ground at its best. Their superb rendition on RCO Live is rehearsed to a T and played to the nines by a faultless orchestra led by a peerless conductor. Man, it's good. But (you heard that coming, didn't you?) there's something just a bit too rehearsed about it. Nothing I can quite put my finger on, but nonetheless this performance always leaves me a little cold, despite the admiration I have for its technical, sonic, and musical excellence.
Is it possible to play the thing? Oh, yes. You just don't hear it done really right all that often.
But you can hear what is to my tastes the gold-standard New World—along with all of the symphonies in equally stellar performances—in a single box set, the ultimate Dvořák symphonies box. It's from István Kertész and the London Symphony Orchestra, set down from 1963 to 1966 in London's dumpy but acoustically glorious Kingsway Hall by Decca's master engineer Kenneth Wilkinson. This is what great recording is all about, folks. It cannot be done better. The "Decca Sound" was never more thrilling or full-bodied, the London Symphony played its collective heart out, and Kertész had these works in his DNA. His early death (drowned at only 44 while swimming off the coast of Israel) was a tragedy for music lovers worldwide. But he left us a sizeable legacy on record, none more precious than these glorious Dvořák symphonies.
If you don't have it, for heaven's sake get it. Here it is on Amazon for less than $30—for six CDs, no less.