MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD & DOWNLOAD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline

 

Antonín DVOŘÁK (1841–1904)
Symphonic Variations, Op.78 (1877) [22:48]
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World, Op.95 (1893) [41:56]
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
rec. live 8-10 June 2007 (Symphony No.9), 14-15, 17 June 2007 (Variations), Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore, USA. DDD
NAXOS 8.570714 [64:44]
Experience Classicsonline

This recording, the first fruits of Marin Alsop’s new post as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the first of three promised live versions of Dvořák symphonies, has already received widespread acclaim. Not least, has it been proclaimed Bargain of the Month by my colleague Bob Briggs – see review. In a sense, I am merely gilding the lily in echoing his words of praise. If her sojourn in Baltimore is to be as productive as this, it may even eclipse her very successful period with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
 
I thought the opening just a shade tentative – maybe those reviews had led me to expect perfection from the start – but what at first seemed a hesitant approach soon established itself as sensitivity on the part of conductor and orchestra alike. There’s some really hushed and reverential playing in places, yet with plenty of fire when called for. Passages which I had thought merely wistful emerge from this interpretation with a greater sense of their delicacy.
 
By the end of the first movement I was completely won over and nothing afterwards dispelled that feeling. Music which has become hackneyed through (ab)use in commercials, like the ‘far away and long ago’ theme in the second movement emerge fresh in this performance.
 
The Scherzo really scampers along and the Finale is equally fine. BB refers to the catharsis which Alsop finds in the close of the Finale. I know that this will not be to all tastes but it rings true. The storm clouds are there well before that conclusion for those who listen – and Alsop makes me hear them as I’ve never heard them before. This is no merely exultant Finale – there are thoughts here that lie too deep for tears.
 
I’ve seen one blog which characterises this performance as mediocre, comparing it adversely with Naxos’s earlier version by Stephen Gunzenhauser; it doesn’t mention the ending, but I suspect that was in the writer’s mind, together with the slight tentativeness which I noted at the beginning. This performance is, in fact, anything but mediocre. I haven’t heard Gunzenhauser’s New World, but his Naxos versions of the earlier symphonies, (very) serviceable as they are, are left standing by this Alsop Ninth.
 
I first got to know this symphony as a teenager in a performance by Charles Groves and the Liverpool Phil in my home town of Blackburn – free admission in return for programme selling and ushering – and that performance, which knocked my socks off at the time, has remained my benchmark ever since, even over and above the first LP version which I bought – a rather swishy Supraphon pressing of Karel Ančerl’s classic performance. The other Groves performance which has remained with me ever since provided my introduction to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. I don’t think that even Groves dug this deeply into the music.
 
Hitherto my version of choice, matching that Groves benchmark, has been that of Rafael Kubelík in its DG Privilege incarnation with the Scherzo Capriccioso; it’s currently available on Australian Eloquence for around Ł5 (469 623 2) coupled with Smetana’s Vltava, or on DG Originals for around Ł8.50 (447 412 2), more expensive but also more generously coupled with the Eighth Symphony. After that Supraphon LP, I owned both of Isvan Kertesz’s Decca recordings – he, too remains a strong contender: the complete symphonies on 430 046 2 (around Ł9), 8 and 9 on 475 7517 (around Ł8.50), or nos. 5, 7, 8 & 9 on Eloquence 467 472 2 (also around Ł8.50).
 
My allegiance to Kubelík is not dented. His grasp of the music still seems to me intuitively correct and the ADD recording wears its age well – but henceforth this Alsop version will provide an excellent alternative. If push comes to shove – and I do have a rule not to keep two versions of any piece of music – I’m not sure which one would have to go. All I can say is that Alsop has shown me aspects of the music which I had never noticed before.
 
I’m pleased that Naxos have included the Symphonic Variations and that they have been placed first – fine as they are, I wouldn’t want to hear them, or anything else, straight after the New World Symphony. This is first-class music, too little known; the performance here should go some way to redressing that neglect.
 
The recording is first-rate throughout. I could have wished that the download version had been made available at 320kbps, as many of the Chandos-sourced recordings on classicsonline are; better still would have been to offer a lossless version – wma or wav. How about it in future? 192kbps gives a very good approximation of the original CD sound –it’s all that BBC Radio 3 offers, at the best of times, with 160kbps when Test Match Special is on. With faster broadband connections now, most people would prefer the extra fidelity. Give it a try; if you find the sound inadequate – and I certainly didn’t – remember that the CD is not much more expensive.
 
The full original booklet comes with the download. It’s not quite so convenient as what Chandos provide with their downloads – single pages rather than a 2-page spread – but it’s very nice to have it. Cutting and stapling is inevitably a little fussy: again, if you can’t be bothered, buy the CD. The notes in the booklet are of Keith Anderson’s usual quality, though the English version stops one word short of completion before going on to describe the Baltimore SO – you need to read the German translation for the missing word ‘Stimmung’.
 
The cover is tastefully designed, as usual, though surely Naxos with their seemingly inexhaustible supply of 18th and 19th-century illustrations could have produced something contemporary with the New World Symphony.
 
Whichever way you acquire this recording, I cannot imagine that you will be seriously disappointed. Even if you have a favourite account of the symphony, do try this one.
 
Brian Wilson
 
 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.