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 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
Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Antonin DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Symphony No.6 in D, Op.60/B112 [49:05]
Vodnik (The Water Goblin), Op.107/B195 [11:02]
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra/Yakov Kreizberg
rec. Yakult Hall, Amsterdam, June, 2005 (Goblin); December, 2006 (Symphony). DDD/DSD.
Pentatone SACD PTC5186 302 [69:18]
Experience Classicsonline

The Sixth is one of my favourite Dvořák symphonies and, having already read two reviews of this recording, one very positive, the other slightly less so, I was expecting to enjoy it very much. Bob Briggs was impressed by Kreizberg’s recent RFH performance of the Dvořák Violin Concerto with Julia Fischer, so his credentials for the composer are good. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy listening to this new account – Dvořák is always worth listening to – but, in the event, it fell short of eliciting the most positive response.

This seems to be one of those cases where different reviewers hear quite different things in the performance. The more positive review praised Kreizberg’s tendency to keep to one basic tempo for a whole movement, the less positive noted that he applied plenty of rubato. In a sense, both those statements are true, though it is the tinkerings with the basic tempo that struck me most in the opening movement. I’m not averse to performers ‘leaning’ on the music – I’m bowled over by Woolley and the Purcell Quartet when they do this with great subtlety in their Chandos recording of the Bach keyboard concertos, for example – but it doesn’t always work. Here it too often seems forced, the effect too obvious to be successful.

Despite a fairly fast basic tempo, too, that first movement seems overlong at 18:43, thanks to exposition repeats about which Dvořák himself was at best ambiguous. In most performances, the first and second movements are about equal in length; not so here, where, thanks in part to a fairly fast second movement, the first is almost twice as long as the second. For comparison, Gunzenhauser takes 12:32, Bělohlávek 13:09 and Ančerl 13:08 – a surprising degree of near-unanimity.

That second movement and the remaining movements go much better, so that, with surprisingly good playing from the Netherlands Philharmonic – hardly one of the world’s top names – and good, though not exactly outstanding, recording as heard ion stereo only, much of the criticism of the first movement can be forgotten. Nevertheless, I shan’t be replacing the Naxos recording with the Slovak Philharmonic and Stephen Gunzenhauser (8.550268), bargain basement in price but not in terms of performance and, with a very generous playing time nine minutes longer than the PentaTone, it includes an equally attractive performance and recording of the Third Symphony – an early work but well worth hearing. The Naxos cover, with its view of Prague in 1840, is more attractive than PentaTone’s photograph of the conductor.

When it comes to the filler, The Water Goblin, criticisms are left even further behind. This account almost, but not quite, banishes memories of Rafael Kubelík’s excellent version, now available on a superb 3-CD DG Trio collection (469 366 2). Many collectors will already own that DG recording in its current format or in its earlier 2-CD incarnation, thereby compromising the attractions of this PentaTone disc further.

Setting all the criticisms aside, I shall certainly be trying some of Kreizberg’s other recordings – a dozen or so for PentaTone to date. Ian Lace was very pleased with his version of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, which he made Recording of the Month, though his chief praise was for Julia Fischer’s solo performance – see review. Jonathan Woolf was less impressed – interestingly enough he found what he called ‘metrical displacements’ in the outer movements just as troublesome as I found the similar phenomenon in the first movement of the Dvořák– see review.

We weren’t exactly short of good versions of Dvořák’s most Brahmsian symphony: this new version joins the ranks of recommended versions by Mackerras (Supraphon SU3771-2, with the Czech Phil), Myung-Whun Chung (DG 469 046 2, generously coupled with the 8th.) and Bělohlávek (Chandos CHAN9170 – revered in some quarters and regarded as sluggish by others).

We’re even well provided with budget-price versions: Kubelík on DGG 463 158-2; István Kertész’s complete LSO box of the symphonies and overtures (Decca, 6 CDs, 430 046 2, or Nos.4-6 plus overtures on a Double Decca 473 789 2) and Stephen Gunzenhauser with the Slovak PO (Naxos, complete symphonies on 8.506010 or the 6th. coupled with the 3rd. as noted above.) At mid price, Karel Ančerl with the Czech Philharmonic on Ančerl Gold edition 19 (Supraphon SU36792, a generous 75-minute CD with three overtures as fillers) offers perhaps the best version and best value of all, if it’s half as good as what I remember of the LP incarnation of this recording.

Like this PentaTone version, the Ančerl recording is available from eMusic – I’m strongly tempted to go right back to the site and download it. That apart, the eMusic version of the PentaTone recording comes in decent sound, at rates varying from a below par 176kbps to a much more acceptable 224k, and may be recommended – except that, of course, it comes without notes (not a serious problem when the music is relatively mainstream) and Kreizberg is mis-spelled as Krelzberg, which could be a problem if you are searching for this recording via the conductor’s name. The download is, of course, in stereo only - SACD enthusiasts will need to buy the hard copy.

If you are considering this new Kreizberg recording, try to listen to the first movement before you buy.

Brian Wilson


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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.