Customer Reviews

Dvorák: Complete Solo Piano Music (Box Set)

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I love Dvorak's symphonies, concertos, and chamber music, so was excited to find there was a box set of his solo piano music available. However, the three star review at Amazon.com gave me pause, so I did what I often do...consulted the professional reviews at www.classicstoday.com. The reviewer there was very enthusiastic not only about the music, but the soloist and sound quality as well.

I am thrilled with this purchase. All the lyrical beauty, heart, soul, passion, pathos and joy of Dvorak's orchestral and chamber works is here, distilled into the solitary voice of the piano. The works vary widely in form (Scottish Dances, Impromptu, Silhouettes, Mazurkas, Album Leaves, Dumka, Furiants, Poetic Tone Pictures, Themes with Variations, Waltzes, and so on). The length of each work varies widely as well, from two minutes to five or ten or twenty, to occasionally almost an hour. In fact, it's partly the variety of the forms that I am finding so fascinating, even refreshing.

Each piece is played with exquisite care by Stefan Veselka. Indeed the sensitivity and power of his playing makes it clear that each note, each pause, first passed through his heart before reaching his fingers.

Simply put, this is beautiful music, beautifully played.

Dvorák was not noted for his piano music, although he did play the piano himself. For most people the only piece of his they've ever heard is the once-ubiquitous 'Humoresque,' the seventh in a series of so-named pieces. This 5CD collection of all his published piano music played nicely by Stefan Veselka helps one to understand why the piano pieces are not better known outside the Czech world. They are mostly short character pieces that have little to distinguish them besides the frequent use of Czech rhythms (the catchy 'furiant,' for instance) and the tinge of Bohemian folk music. What is surprising is how often the music sounds both generic and un-pianistic. One shouldn't be THAT surprised at the latter since that's a hallmark of his better-known Piano Concerto. Still, it catches one off-guard at times. I found myself wondering why he did certain things the way he did, particularly since it didn't seem to make the music stronger. Janácek did the same sort of thing but always in the service of an arresting idea; not so here.

Don't get the idea that the music isn't pleasant and even lovely at times. It's just that it doesn't seem particularly unique or, dare I say, Dvorákian. When compared with what Brahms was doing at about the same time, or even that by Dvorák's Czech compatriot Fibich, or by Grieg, whose music this often resembles in intent, the music doesn't stand out. Nonetheless, it passes pleasantly if not terribly memorably.

I'm afraid this one is for Dvorák completists only, or people who want a large repository of background piano music of this sort. The playing is good, the recorded sound is also clear and rich. It appears that this is a reissue of a set that originally came out on Supraphon a few years ago. Pianist Stefan Veselka, by the way, is a Norwegian, native of Stavanger, but is the son of Czech parents. He wrote introductory notes for each of the five CDs' booklets and clearly knows and loves this music well.

TT=ca. 5 hours

Scott Morrison