Customer Reviews

Janacek: Sinfonietta / Symphony No. 6

5 star:		(2)
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Of the many Dvorak 6ths available, this is one of the finest, showing what a marvellous work it is. Kubelik brings sunny warmth, with radiant woodwinds, yet weight and drama also. As David Hurwitz says, in his Classics Today review, it has "an abundance of warmth, generously spontaneous rubato, and a winning lyricism that's simply breathtaking"

Excellent recording too, despite being live from 1981

The Janacek is very fine too, though its not a work I'm familiar enough with, through other performances, to make a fully informed comment upon.

Even the greatest orchestras don't employ the fourteen trumpets needed for the Janacek Sinfonietta, and the parts are hard enough that even a major city is strained to provide ten free lances of adequate quality. for that reason, even the best studio accounts of the work tend to fall short. This one emerges triumphantly, however, with the best trumpet ensemble I've ever encountered. Kubelik was a past master of the score -- this is the fifth version from him I've run across, the earliest going back to the late Forties -- and he has no trouble balancing the work's strange mixture of grandeur and barbarism. The on-site recording is very good as well.

As for the Dvorak Sixth, it's a winning but tricky work, bull of gorgeous melodies that must be delivered, in the first and last movement, by controlling a long buildup with rhythmic detours along the way. Kubelik made a DG recording that suffered from edgy, glassy sound. Otherwise, this is essentially the same reading with better sonics, quite good ones, in fact. He favors a good deal of rubato, with marked slow downs as the big themes reach their climax. I'm not so fond of having the momentum stall that way, but one has to admire Kubelik's warm, knowing, affectionate way with this score. The pacing can be too measured at times, but he's never slack. It's a tossup between his approach and Kertesz's more straightforward, energized interpretation on Decca. If you already know that you like Kubelik, the improved sound on this Orfeo release may sway you, even though the price is considerably higher than buying the Sixth in a box set with the other eight symphonies.