An enterprising if not entirely successful
idea. I am assuming that this
album is meant as an educational tool,
an introduction to the music of Dvořŕk.
The CDs music has already been issued
on other Brilliant Classics collections.
(Other super budget Brilliant Classic
DVD/CD sets in the series are devoted
to: Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Bach,
Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Chopin,
Handel, Puccini and Ravel.)
Dealing first with the DVD. This is
devoted to what I can only describe
as an eccentric and too superficial
documentary that disconcertingly moves
backwards and forwards through the life
of the Czech composer. There are, it
is true, some imaginative graphics and
absorbing old contemporary photographs
taken in Bohemia and America. But the
flow of the documentary is interspersed
at different points by single movements
of Dvořŕk’s
Tenth String Quartet – one might query
why this work, why not a more popular
orchestral work.
Of course being a visual documentary,
the producers have had to include some
visual treats to maintain attention
while the String Quartet is being performed.
One movement has two young ladies, beautiful
twins agreed, but cavorting on a table
in a meadow as the quartet performs
in front of them? Another movement has
visuals with a Rusalka flavour
– a young woman lies in a brook, Pre-Raphaelite
Ophelia-like, before she rises from
the water to seduce a young woman and
entice him, water nymph-like, to a watery
grave. A third movement has visuals
in a butcher’s shop to remind us of
Dvořák’s
humble beginnings. Then the string quartet
players are transferred to a wood for
three gypsies to cavort around them
.
The CD recordings are of ageing performances,
sometimes, I guess, reissued a number
of times. Recorded sound varies from
good to very good.
The CDs comprise performances that
range from the so-so to the very good.
The best is Zara Nelsover’s warm-hearted,
sensitive recording of the Cello Concerto
which I seem to remember dates from
the 1950s? [This performance was originally
issued
as part of an all Dvořák release
– Brilliant Classics 99763 and reviewed
on MusicWeb. Süsskind
is a most sympathetic accompanist bringing
out all the autumnal colours and nostalgia
of that lovely Adagio second movement.
Paavo Järvi’s recording of the
New World Symphony with the RPO,
included here has also been previously
released by Brillaint Classics as part
of a boxed set of all the Dvořák
symphonies.The performance has
zest to recommend it with some interesting
idiosyncratic phrasing.
Menuhin’s recording of the Serenade
for Strings is uneven, sometimes
beautifully realised like the sheen
of the strings in the Tempo de valse
and diffident in the opening Moderato.
John Farrer’s way with the lovely Slavonic
Dances is sometimes heavy-handed
and lacking in charm. Both recordings
had also been previously released by
Brilliant Classics.
I should add that the packaging includes
no printed notes aboput the music whatsoever.
This is shoe-string super-budget stuff
with a vengeance!
This DVD/CD
introduction to the life and works of
Dvořŕk is only partially
successful The DVD documentary is downright
eccentric and the ageing CD recordings
varied in quality
Ian Lace
Zara Nelsova (cello) 
BRILLIANT
CLASSICS 92408 [1 DVD and 2 CDs: 74:46 + 76:39]
