Search - Dvorak, Monteux, Lso :: Dvorak: Symphony 7 D minor Op.70/Beethoven: Symphony 7 A major Op.92

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 01/19/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dvorak seems to me to have shown his full potential less than any composer of similar genius, but the seventh symphony also seems to me to be quite the greatest thing he did. When he is at his most inspired, say in the cello concerto, he is prolix and lacking in self-discipline. He gives us the same combination of superlative inspiration in the first movement tailing off progressively and at enormous length in the great G major quartet that he published next, and in the A flat quartet that follows that he reins himself in but the inspiration-level falls off just a little as if in consequence. Where he is at his most competent and professional, as in the piano quintet or the Scherzo Capriccioso or the Dumky trio or the sixth symphony he is also a little bit lightweight, again as if by way of compensation.



One yearns to have it both ways, and once ever that I can think of he gives that to us. There is a very reliable indicator with Dvorak of how hard his muse is working, and it is how much of that tedious self-conscious Czechery he dishes up. Smetana puts him to shame in that respect and Dvorak himself has better things on offer in this great masterpiece of a symphony. Monteux's performance I still think, after all these years, better than any recent version. Monteux set out to be a specialist in Brahms above all, and whether that gives him some special insight into Dvorak I don't know nor is it very apparent to me why it would, but the insight is there one way or another. A major test of any conductor is how he handles the rhythm at the start of the quite marvellous 6/4 third movement. The very beginning needs to be slower than the main pulse as it soon develops and the counter-theme below the main melody needs to be marked but not overly marked, the difference between complete success and another run-of-the-mill effort being wafer-thin or less, and Monteux passes the test majestically. It may be that Kubelik judged the celestial swaying unsteady rhythm even better at the point where the main section returns after the strange uneasy `trio', but nobody else that I can recall has. The very opening has the right sinister feel to it, the elaborate transition to the second subject-group is managed with real finesse, and the Brahms-inspired gesture that he makes to his great mentor by way of the second subject itself is properly free of any brahmsishness. The slow movement, in my opinion the best Dvorak ever produced, is something near perfect, and the marvellous duet between horn and clarinet that Tovey compared to a rustic Tristan and Isolde, following on the unique piece of inspiration that the same sage perceptively likened to Bruckner, are deeply moving and impressive. The last movement, again surely Dvorak's very best, is fluent and powerful, rising to a grand final climax in the major key.



The recording quality is very reasonable indeed. There is such a thing as recording Dvorak too well, because for all his famously acute sense of orchestral colour his orchestration lacks the discipline so apparent in, say, Tchaikovsky's, or even in its own different way Brahms's. There is a slightly shrill sound to the violins when the first movement's second theme returns fortissimo at the end of the exposition but that is the result of the way the composer has scored the passage, and hyper-digitised modern recording actually makes the problem, insofar as it even amounts to one, worse.



Older record collectors will doubtless remember this great performance. More recent arrivals on the scene will find it worth hunting out."