Dvorák: Tone Poems

Antonin Dvorak (Composer), Simon Rattle (Conductor), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: Simon Rattle
• Composer: Antonin Dvorak
• Audio CD (August 2, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B0009U55Z6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,344 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

By 1896, Dvorák had written some of his greatest works, including nine symphonies. Back from America, he was at the height of both his fame and his compositional power. Perhaps seeking a path less traveled, he wrote these four "orchestral ballads," as he called them, in quick succession, turning from his strict symphonic style to a more narrative, operatic form. However, his choice of literary inspiration can only be explained by his ardent patriotism: the poetry of Karel Jaromir Erben, an iconic Czech national poet. Archivist of Prague and collector of folk songs, he must have had a wild, perhaps folklore-influenced imagination. The poems are relentlessly gruesome and blood-thirsty, describing cruelty, mutilation, murder, suicide, and vengeance. That these horrors were alien to the warm-hearted composer is proved by his music. Although it illustrates character, atmosphere and every mood from drama and lamentation to exuberance, it is ravishingly beautiful. Its ardent, caressing lyricism, soaring melodies, inspired harmonies, daring modulations and ecstatic climaxes are literally breath-taking. Why these towering masterpieces are so rarely heard is a mystery; it is easy to ignore the grim literary content and surrender to the music, and the masterly, colorful orchestration must make them wonderful to play as well. Recorded live, the performance is superb: grand and sweeping yet sensitive to every timbral and expressive nuance, but the extreme, often sudden dynamic contrasts require a finger on the volume control. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Harnoncourt, Mackerras, Jarvi, Kertesz, and Kubelik all better Rattle's readings, August 31, 2006

By 

Prescott Cunningham Moore (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dvorák: Tone Poems (Audio CD)

As overjoyed as I am to see these late orchestral gems performed by a "name-brand" orchestra and conductor for a major label, I find these performances too problematic to recommend whole heartedly. As with his other recent efforts with EMI, Rattle's work here is mostly a mixed bag, where moments of tremendous energy are followed by dead patches of truly stiff playing. It doesn't help that Rattle never lets loose, keeping these romantic symphonic poems ridiculously earthbound when transcendence is so necessary. Take, for example, the rising climax of the Water Goblin - over a tremendous drum roll, the brass play the creatures theme as he struggles with the maiden. The goblin is, of course, defeated, leading into a wonderful coda, which carries the tremendous tension of that final outburst with the added irony of sorrow for the water spirit. However, here, this tremendous moment is so underplayed. The trumpets are barely audible (forget the lower brass) and Rattle carries the affair with a perfunctory nonchalance. Kertesz (Decca), Jarvi (Chandos), and Harnoncourt (Teldec) all surpass Rattle in this poem. Or take the Golden Spinning Wheel. Barely audible horns (a serious and persistent problem in this series) in no way conjure the heroic, bucolic sound necessary to call the procession together. Even in the Noonday Witch, the best in the set, the necessary amount of sleaze and grotesque is conspicuously absent. Rattle is unable to change the color and timbre of his band to suit these four remarkably different and brilliantly orchestrated works, instead choosing a "one size fits all" approach ill fitting for music as dynamic as this. Worse still, EMI's engineers heavily emphasize the strings while placing the brass (especially the horns) so far back in the rear that they are practically inaudible. For the symphonic poems, look to Kertesz (the Wood Dove is absent), Jarvi (a particularly wonderful Water Goblin), Harnoncourt (the poems are coupled with brilliant readings of the symphonies), Kubelik (not particular favorites of mine but still stunning readings) or Mackerras (who's stunning reading of The Golden Spinning Wheel is coupled with an equally fierce 6th Symphony). There is better Dvorak out there. I would pass on this.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Musical but unexciting Dvorak, May 3, 2007

By 

Larry VanDeSande - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dvorák: Tone Poems (Audio CD)

Like the Harnoncourt-Concertgebouw package of this exact concert, this meticulously produced twofer from Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic includes four Dvorak tone poems -- "ballads" the conductor calls them -- in a poorly-construed package that takes up two CDs when the whole thing could have been delivered on a single CD, either in super audio or with a cut or two, to offer this for a discount.

As it is, Amazon sells this as a two-for-one proposition. However, because almost every other rendition of these four works -- "The Golden Spinning Wheel", "The Wood Dove", "The Noonday Witch" and "The Water Goblin" -- you can put your hands on is more exciting than these, the value of this is significantly degraded. Most other reoordings are also more Slavic, something you probably wouldn't expect from a German orchestra and British conductor.

And they don't let you down in that regard! Rattle's attack in this music, if you dare call it that, is ultramusical and international. He eschews overstatement, both musically and emotionally, 100 percent of the time. I haven't heard hundreds of recordings of this music but every one I've heard is more exciting than these, more given to Slavic temperament, and many are just as involving from an architectural standpoint.

Rattle by contrast carries on with genial performances that emphasize individual elements of the score, almost as if he's tending too much to the trees and not enough to the forest This is fine as far as it goes but it leaves too much out of the music and basically misses the big picture.

These exact four tone poems were released on another twofer by Harnoncourt that received plentiful critical plaudits and are still considered de rigeur interpretations in the The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music. Other remarkable recordings have been turned in by Czech conductors Talich, Chalabala, and Kubelik. Some notable non-Slavs have done them too -- Jarvi, Gunzenhauser,and American Theodore Kuchar -- to some or great acclaim.

I note the same marketing shortcoming as the Harnoncourt issue: Rattle and Harnoncourt put 83 minutes and 81 minutes of music, respectively, on two CDs. In the super audio era where companies can squeeze this much music on one SACD, why didn't EMI choose to do that and release this as an SACD? It would have given the recording a novelty no other could match. Furthermore, they could have marketed this as one of the reasons the Berliners chose Rattle as their conductor -- because they wanted to perform repertoire outside their historic and expected range.

Indeed, when Rattle arrived in Berlin, the story was his selection marked a turning point in the history of the great orchestra. Rattle's charge was to take the orchestra in new and different directions, both interpretively (with his penchant for period performance) and in terms of repertory. This recording was a chance to capitalize on all that. It now appears to be an opportunity lost.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reveling in the sound of a great orchestra, March 4, 2006

By 

E. Weed (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dvorák: Tone Poems (Audio CD)

To add a few thoughts from this listener: I bought this CD recently because I was intrigued with Rattle's recording of Debussy that came out about the same time. I was not (and am still not) crazy about Rattle's interpretation of the Debussy, but the playing and sound of this superb orchestra under Rattle was so fine that my curiousity compelled me to try this disc as well. I was not disappointed.

The music is well-described in the other reviews. Dvorak, to my mind, tended to do a better job with the open-ended format of these tone poems than he sometimes did with symphonic form. Perhaps he felt less constrained. In any event, these tone poems are indeed top-drawer Dvorak, and less known than they should be.

A couple of reviews in the major publications have been critical of Rattle's interpretation of these works. That's fair. As with Rattle's Debussy disc, from time to time he seems to become absorbed in the beauty of the individual moment, in the process letting the pulse drift and losing the thread of the musical architecture.

But I have to admit that he's a master at making the most out of the beauty of the individual moment, and with the Berlin Philharmonic, has a superb vehicle with which to do it.

As with the Debussy disc, the recording seems to me to be excellent, although I have to agree with others that the exceptionally wide dynamic range in some quiet spots almost causes you to wonder where the sound went. (It's entirely possible, though, that part of that is Rattle's doing--it is entirely consistent with, for example, his recording of Sibelius's 4th Symphony with Birmingham years ago.) What I particularly like, though, is how different the orchestra sounds with EMI versus DG. I hear more individual detail in the EMI recordings; a more close-in perspective, and less of a glossy homogenous sheen on the strings. (This is not to dis the DG "style"--I really enjoyed the sound on DG's recent Abbado Pelleas excerpts disc as well--although some of the Karajan efforts suffered from "too much of a good thing.")

So, one could ask for performances with more forward motion and coherence, but, when the playing and sound of the orchestra are this good, there is some real listening pleasure to be had.