Dvorak: Serenade for Wind

Antonin Dvorak (Composer), George Enescu (Composer), Leos Janacek (Composer), Wind Soloists of the Oslo Philharmonic (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Wind Soloists of the Oslo Philharmonic
• Composer: Antonin Dvorak, George Enescu, Leos Janacek
• Audio CD (April 11, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B00004S5BK
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,603 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robust, insightful and wonderfully "Slavic" perfs!!, August 21, 2001

By 

Timothy Mikolay (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dvorak: Serenade for Wind (Audio CD)

This disc is amazing. Discovering this idiom, the wind serenade, for me was a delight not just from a musical perspective, but from an historical one as well. The Dvorak has the usual but always satisfying melodies and developments with some wonderful voicing and the Enescu is quite flashy but quite substantial. It nevers lacks the heart and soul most flashy pieces in any idiom seem to suffer from. The Janacek is classic in every respect regarding his concept of tonality and rhythm and a joy to listen to. As my fiance listened to this, she said enjoyed it very much.

The Oslo winds play magnificently embellishing and articulating with exceptional results. I hope any reader of this review will continue on to add this to their listening library. It is a catalog rarity but an immensely satisfying aural experience.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super in Every Way, September 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Dvorak: Serenade for Wind (Audio CD)

Lots of Naxos discs are bargains. Then again, even at the price, lots are not. But the current CD represents an outstanding value. Everything-music, performances, and recording-are of the highest order. First, the music. Has anyway created more gorgeously Schubertian melodies (except, of course, for Schubert himself) than Antonin Dvorak? And is there any more glorious an example of latter-day Schubertian melodiousness than Dvorak's Opus 44 Serenade? While the first and last movements feature a stern little march in D minor, the Serenade is mostly a sunny work, except for the middle section of the charming Andante, where clouds gather much as they do in parts of the essentially sunny Octet of Schubert. Is this one of Dvorak's models? A fine model if so, and I think Dvorak surpasses it to create one of his best works.

Then there is Janacek's quirky Mladi, a tribute to the composer's music-inspired youth, written when the master was seventy-a piquant and memorable piece.

Enescu's Dixtuor is maybe a little less memorable than either of these works, written in what the writer of liner notes for the CD calls an "international style," which translates to something like the wind music of Richard Strauss without the pomp and circumstance-fine with me, by the way. In the slow middle movement, Enescu seems to use Romanian folk elements, and the sounds are both attractive and very interesting, by far the most arresting music in the piece. (I fail to find any influence of Bach, which the note writer swears to hearing in the Dixtuor.)

The players from the distinguished Oslo Philharmonic bring great style to these three works. Mladi, not easy to bring off, has never seemed more cogent to me, and the Enescu undoubtedly sounds like a finer piece than it really is in the Norwegian musicians' capable hands. But the performance of the best work on the disc, the Dvorak, is the capper. I can't imagine a more mellifluous or tender one.

Even the recording, made in a couple of churches in Oslo, is outstanding, melding atmospherics and punch in just the right measure. Top-notch!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal wind playing, January 20, 2010

By 

A. Braid "abraid" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dvorak: Wind Serenade / Janacek: Mladi / Enescu: Dixtuor (MP3 Download)

This is a phenomenal collection of interesting pieces for wind ensemble--the musicianship is first rate, and the music itself, although generally not well known (aside from the Dvorak Serenade) is both beautiful and thought provoking. This disc features wonderful performances of carefully selected repertoire--the program is well balanced with popular (Dvorak) and less popular peices, and between more classical (Dvorak) and more modern (Janacek) styles. The disk is also a bargian--a must for any fan of woodwinds or Czeck composers.

Although these superb Oslo Philharmonic wind players have tough competition in the Dvorak (the St. Paul and Orpheus Chamber Orchestras are two of my favorites), they deliver an excellent performance. One the whole, the Dvorak tempos are brisk (this is one of the fastest recordings), which works to the advantage of the minuet and the finale. Although this reduces the "march" feeling of the first movement and the exquisite and sensuous dreaminess of the third movement, it does prevent these movements from dragging on, and gives the entire performance the ambiance of a light-hearted serenade--probably what Dvoark intended--and not a heavy symphony. The third movement is beautiful on this recording, with each individual player singing his line beautifully. The brisk last movement features a hair-raising finale, one of the highlights of the entire performance.

The Enescu piece is similarly fantastic. Perhaps one of the outstanding qualities of this piece--its beautiful instrumentation (including flutes, oboe, clarinets, english horn, french horn, and bassoons)--has also worked to the detriment of the piece's popularity (where can you find so many musicians!). The piece, for me, evokes a number of styles combining to make a generous and gentle serenade ambiance: the spiraling Sraussian melodies and chord progressions/resolution, Debussian textures (the movements are titled in French), and Schubertian simplicity. The first movement features gorgeous unfolding melodies modulating into beautiful tonal progressions. The second movement opens with gentle octaves and a flute ostinato (evoking Stravinsky's neoclassicism or Debussy's anti-expressionism) and weaves a quick middle section into a recapitulation of the movement's slow main theme. The third and last movement has a lighter side that brings the piece to its conclusion. Proving that he was not merely a sappy super-romantic, Enescu uses contrapuntal textures throughout the work. The Oslo Philharmonic players sing with beautiful ensemble work--blending of tones, perfect intonation, and consistent articulation and shaping of phrases. At times, they even sound like a full orchestra.

Though not as rare as the Enescu, the Janacek is also less frequently performed, perhaps because it has so much competition in the wind-quintet repertorie. Here, Janacek is seemingly experimenting with many different styles, evocative of similar episodes in the wind quintets of Nielsen and Hindemith (Kleine Kammermusic, op. 24 #2). Parts of the work have an 'etude' feel, but the Oslo players execute wonderfully. For instance, the first and third movements have passages of devilish syncopation; the last movement has the french horn playing repetitive sixteenth-notes (double-tounging) while the oboe, flute and clarinet sing folksy melodies. The Oslo players fill this score with color and liveliness appropriate to the styles of each of the work's varying movements.

Even if you already own a recording of the Dvorak, this disk is well worth the price--you'll own another, probably different Dvorak interpretation and have two other gems on the side. I just wish the liner notes were not so skimpy and said more about these beautiful peices of music and the musicians who play them.