The Other Dvořák D Minor

If you're any kind of connoisseur of things symphonic, undoubtedly you're well versed in the magisterial Dvořák Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, one of the towering landmarks of the late Romantic. If you're not, then hop to it. Nobody should miss out on the Dvořák Seventh; it's just too good. May I direct you to the recent recording from Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, on Channel Classics? Nobody—and I mean nobody, not even Szell or Mackerras or Bernstein—reaches the innermost heart of the thing as does Fisher and his gold-medal ensemble. That's especially the case in the last movement, a wicket so notoriously sticky that it has misled some commentators into blaming the writing for perceived shortcomings. Fisher settles that misconception: there's nothing wrong with the writing.

Yet the Seventh isn't Dvořák's first symphony in D Minor. Honor of place goes to the relatively unknown and unsung Symphony No. 4, Op. 13, written in 1873 during a volcanically productive period in Dvořák's career. Note that it dates three years before Brahms rebooted the symphonic genre as a going thing with his C Minor Symphony of 1876. I bring this up only to counter the common shibboleth that the wave of nationalist symphonies à la Nielsen and Sibelius and Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, etc etc and so forth and so on, was engendered solely by the splashy success of the Brahms First. While it's true enough that the Brahms C Minor encouraged symphonic production throughout Europe and (eventually) America, it isn't as though a bunch of quaintly-costumed guys were huddled in their respective corners, clutching their unpublished manuscripts and muttering when oh when are you going to cough up the damn thing, Johannes, so our symphonies can get a hearing? The truth of the situation, as always, was messier, broader, less conveniently sound-byte-ish.

That said, the Dvořák Fourth fits the sound byte pretty well. Even though it dates from 1873, its premiere waited until 1892, and only then after Dvořák had made revisions 1887-88 in anticipation of a (cancelled) performance by the London Philharmonic. After the twenty-year-old symphony's belated April 1892 unveiling in Prague, the journal Dalibor had this to say:

The Symphony in D minor is one of those delightful creations of a chosen genius in which carefree youthfulness may be seen, but in which every trace contains the germ of future strength, nobility, and individuality.

That's a pretty fair assessment on the whole, but it overstates the so-called youthful shortcomings; Dvořák was 32, recently married, and hardly inexperienced. It was his fourth symphony, after all, and comes almost immediately on the heels of the masterfully-constructed Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, not to mention being contemporary with the popular Opus 11 Romance in F Minor for violin and piano. It's not baby Dvořák, in other words. It's the real deal, a full-length (40 minutes or so) symphony for full-sized orchestra.

That's not to say that it's perfect. I'll be the first to admit that the finale creaks a bit. It's a rather sprawling Rondo hobbled by a squarish and repetitive theme that might work for an epigrammatic Schumann piano piece but which seems woefully unsuited to symphonic development. Commentators who think of the third-movement Scherzo as inhabiting an isolated gestalt are probably reacting more to its origin as a separate orchestral piece rather than anything overt in the music. Personally I think it fits beautifully, a vintage Dvořákian dance movement such as one finds in the Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth symphonies. Another commentarial favorite is to point out the similarity between the Pilgrim's Chorus in Lohengrin and the main theme of the second movement—but I wonder if that observation has been passed around blindly from writer to writer without anybody taking a close look at the thing. I find the resemblance to be fleeting and coincidental. Nor do I hear much of anything Wagnerian about the symphony in general beyond those second-movement resemblances. Maybe I'm being obtuse. For what it's worth, the only really palpable influence I hear in the Dvořák Fourth is Schubert, particularly the C Major Symphony. The first movement is pure-bred, unadulterated Dvořák—a dark and turbulent main theme contrasting with a luminous waltz for a second subject, the yin-yan balance perfectly maintained throughout.

Enough with the gab. Let's talk about hearing the thing. The situation for recordings is excellent with one important caveat: the 4th is rarely encountered outside of complete Dvořák symphony sets, rather than being programmed just for itself on a single. So I'm not going to be recommending any performances that can be obtained on a single CD, but some just might be reachable via a download, should that be your desire. However, I should point out that most of the complete sets are available at very reasonable prices, in which 6 some-odd CDs are priced as 2 or 3. So don't jump to any conclusions about retail strategies. On to those recordings about which I can speak.

It should come as no surprise that the Czech Philharmonic has given us a fair number of sets—this is their home turf, after all. Of those, the two shepherded by Vaclav Neumann surely have pride of place. The first, dating from the early 1970s, has recently been released in a superbly remastered edition from Supraphon. The second is the 1987 digital edition (also on Supraphon) that has been widely available since its introduction. Both are superlative, but the latter is no mere remake; one might be hard-pressed to recognize the two as performed by the same conductor and orchestra. Both renditions of the Fourth are excellent; overall I give the nod to the 1971 outing over the 1987. It's a gentle performance, particularly in the scherzo, but I also really dig the orchestra's loving treatment of the ecstatic waltz-like second theme in the first movement.

Another orchestra with multiple Dvořák cycles under the belt is the London Symphony Orchestra, with two sets made in the mid-1960s that are both A-plus contenders. Witold Rowicki was not all that well-known of a conductor, but the evidence of this cycle ranks him amongst the very finest. Originally recorded by Philips and now released by Decca, the set leaps nimbly from strength to strength. To my mind this is the ideal scherzo movement, not too driving, but filled with spunk and energy. To be sure, the main theme of the scherzo sounds just a bit like a recruiting song (I….want to be in the Naaaa…vyyy) but that's just fine with me. Then there's the other LSO set, the whopper of them all, to date the Dvořák cycle to end all Dvořák cycles, led by the glorious (and tragically short-lived) István Kertész in London's acoustically splendid Kingsway Hall, and captured by Decca's ace engineer Kenneth Wilkinson. No other performance gets the radiant glory of the first movement's waltz like Kertész, and unlike almost every other performance, this one makes the last movement hang together, mostly I think via sheer energy and an ear resolutely trained on the longest possible phrases. I find Kertész's approach to the scherzo perhaps a bit militaristic and driving, but it's still a whale of a joyride, and the sweet intimacy of the second movement is perfectly captured.

The Berlin Philharmonic has certainly put down its share of Dvořák symphonies, but for most folks, Berlin + Dvořák = Rafael Kubelik. His lofty renditions from the 1970s stand tall as beacons of superb orchestra playing (of course) and sterling musicianship. That said, I'm not crazy about most of the Fourth—it's kind of muscular and square on the whole—saving the Andante, which is incomparable.

One other performance worth mentioning is the indefatigable Neeme Järvi at the head of the Royal Scottish National, an early digital production from Chandos that was originally released on a big pile of single CDs and is now available in a handy-dandy box set. It's quite a good Fourth on the whole, certainly well-played by an orchestra that could run brusque and even harsh on occasion, with significantly more nuanced and sensitive leadership than I usually associate with Järvi. I'm not sure that I cotton to the luxuriant ritard with which Järvi slides the band into the first movement waltz theme—not out of any printed-page scruples but because I think it drains the lyrical energy—but that's nitpicking. The humming energy of their third-movement Scherzo, not to mention some dynamite horn playing, elevates this relatively overlooked recording to the front ranks.

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