Perhaps you got out of the wrong side of the bed when you reviewed the Serebrier? It may well not be the best but I find it pretty good overall, especially in the middle symphonies and 7. The big let down for me is 8 - I still love the Ancerl recording on the EMI twofer and have a soft spot for the Dorati/Mercury 8 - hard driven but exciting!
Interesting! - absolutely agree over the quality of Neumann but MUCH prefer analogue cycle to digital remake. I find the latter cycle to be far less engaged and dynamic even at very similar tempi. Its the Czech PO so it sounds lovely but for me far more routine than the early set. But then I don't think the Serebrier set is nearly as bad as Ralph would have you think either!
Delighted to read Dieter's praise of Neumann. Note that Neumann recorded the complete Dvořák symphonies twice for Supraphon, in startlingly different styles: a warmer, more laid-back 1970s analogue cycle now in an 8-CD Symphonic Works box (coupled with N’s recordings of the symphonic poems & overtures), and a much tauter, sharper-edged 1980s cycle in characteristic early digital sound, now reissued on three 2-CD sets. When the latter cycle first came out I was rather horrified by the change, and I don’t think it has the immediate appeal of the earlier one, but over the years I’ve learned that it’s tremendously good for cleansing the ears of schmaltz!
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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