Unless you are hell-bent on getting Pešek's recording of A Fairy
Tale you would do better to go for the alternative and mid-price coupling
which gives you Pešek directing Praga with A Summer's Tale.
Having heard various versions of A Fairy Tale (based on
incidental music for Julius Zeyer's drama of the lovelorn and the star-crossed)
I did not find this interpretation all that engaging. There is some lovely
music here but Pešek does not capture the sheer intoxication that comes
across in much earlier (pre-CD) recordings from Ancerl. This recording is
good with some attentive engineering for the violin solos (cousins to the
dreamier moments in the Dvorak and Beethoven concertos) but Pešek rather
over-ladles the bumptious side familiar from Smetana's Haakon Jarl and
Richard III.
Praga wanders a nocturnal Prague and its sanguine-tragic history
is invoked by a memorable fanfare which I associate with Janacek's theme
for Ostap in Taras Bulba. Suk is a generous melodist (10.15) and is
given to using the solo violin and solo viola to advance the plot. The piece
is long-winded but in its final address gathers itself impressively around
the fanfare theme.
There are more generous couplings at mid-price. This disc struck me as a
straggler in the catalogue: welcome for A Fairy Tale but not compelling.
Rob Barnett
Czech PO/Libor Pešek
