In fact I like to hear Dvořák done in a diversity of styles. I yield to nobody in my love of tangy Czech performances (Talich, Neumann, etc), but I also admire those conductors who absorb Dvořák totally into the Central European tradition, as if he isn’t a mere parochial figure but a solid symphonic craftsman who can look Schubert & Brahms straight in the eye without flinching. My complaint is that the very best Teutonizers of Dvořák confined their attention to Nos. 8 & 9. (Here I’m thinking not only of early Karajan, but also of the two conductors named Bruno Walter—the Sturm-und-Drang 1940s New Yorker and the Indian-Summer 1960ish Californian—at least as different as the two Neumanns!) I wish they had gone further.
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