Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An incredible bargain, August 1, 2000
It's hard to believe that Decca is reissuing this set at this price given the fact that it pretty much renders most of the more recent, full price recordings of Dvorak moot. This is simply a terrific cycle of the Dvorak symphonies! Kertesz brings life and excitement to all these pieces. His touch works especially well in the first six symphonies, which are all sadly neglected in the concert hall. Rhythms are crisp and bracing. The orchestral sound pulses with life. The Amazon reviewer rightly notes that the playing isn't perfect, but there is so much vibrancy to the playing that the occasional crudeness is irrelevant. This bargain is also an excellent introduction to the treasures that lie in Dvorak's early symphonies. Numbers one and two are certainly overlong, but you have to love the scherzo of the first. Three and four are considered Wagnerian by many critics, but both contain a wealth of gorgeous melody. (I especially like the opening of three and the soaring melody introduced a few minutes into the Finale of 4.) Five is a wonderfully bucolic piece (at least until the Finale), with another memorable scherzo. Six is very Brahmsian--with a wonderful opening movement rich with horns. You may have recordings of the last three, but Kertesz need not bow before anyone in these pieces, so don't let duplication keep you from getting this. I noticed that DG has rereleased the wonderful Kubelik cycle, but it is more expensive. Get this one and hope that DG offers Kubelik on separate discs so that you can get his fabulous sixth.
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62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Melody flows from Dvorak's pen like water from a tap., October 29, 2002
In the early '60s, I developed an interest in the Dvorak symphonies beyond the evergreen "Symphony from the New World" and began acquiring a complete set on the Artia label from Czechoslovakia. These were authoritative, idiomatic performances, but the sound quality - and the lack of stereo on at least a few of them - left me wishing for more.
I had barely finished this Artia set when the first release or two of Istvan Kertész's performances with the London Symphony, then on London LPs, hit the market. I can't really remember, at this late date, which was the first in the set except that it included a performance of the "Hussite Overture" that literally blew me away. In pretty short order, I soon had a second full set of Dvorak symphonies - the Kertész set - in splendidly up-to-date stereo sound and in performances that sounded, if anything, even more idiomatic than those Artia performances. And, as noted, a large part of the "freshness" to these Kertész performances may well be due to his relaxed approach to what had been for him new repertoire.
I don't know that there's ever been a more melodic composer than Dvorak. Some might opt for Tchaikovsky, but I would differ with them. Even Dvorak's early symphonies - long unknown to concert-goers and record-collectors - have the gift of spontaneous melody, if not the perfection of craft that his later works in the genre did. And his overtures and orchestral scherzi matched the symphonies in melodiousness: the "In Nature's Realm" Overture is downright irresistable in this respect.
This boxed set of the works, remastered for CD, is a splendid bargain. The remastered sound need take second place to any other integral set of the Dvorak symphonies (save one, which I mention briefly at the end). And of course the full magic of Kertész's performances is there for all to enjoy without concern for "settling for second best" in any respect.
But I have a few gripes about how Decca has gone about this CD release. The set of symphonies and overtures comes in two 4-CD jewel boxes inside a slipcase. But there are only 6 CDs, the penny-pinching for which leads to awkward sidebreaks for a few of the symphonies. And the "Hussite Overture" - one of the very best in the set, and one of the very best performances of the work anywhere - is nowhere to be found.
How much better it would have been had Decca seen fit to include the "Hussite Overture" and with the very real expectation that the regrettable sidebreaks would not have occurred! This is reason enough for me to give this release only 4 stars. And it is a shame because it needn't have been that way!
There is every appearance that Ivan Fischer (interestingly, another Hungarian and not a Czech) is in the process of doing his own (and very new) traversal of these works, with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and on the Philips label. The little I've heard has me very excited. But Fischer does not "put Kertész in the shade." And the price is considerably higher.
Aside from the aforementioned nits about saving a disc or two and its side effects, I doubt very much that you'd be disappointed in this bargain boxed set.
Bob Zeidler
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kertesz or Kubelik in the Dvorak symphonies?, May 2, 2006
Although decades old, the two analog sets of Dvorak symphonies from Kertesz and Kubelik remain the front-runnters. From the mid-Sixties onward Decca has been so satisfied with the groundbreaking Kertesz cycle, the first to bring Sym. 1-6 to the general listening public outisde Czechoslovakia, that the company has rarely re-recorded any but the last three, most famous symphonies. DG, on the other hand, didn't release Kubelik's Sym. 1-6 until the digital era (1988, I believe), keeping them in the vualts and out of competiiton with Kertesz.
Now both sets are offered at basically the same price on 6 mid-line discs, with deep discounts on the used market. The difference between the two is quite marked musically, however. Kertesz comunicates the thrill of discovery in the early symphhonies. Amazingly, he had never conducted them before, and their vibrancy and inner life lift my spirits every time I hear them. The LSO didn't know these pieces, either, but play with rousing commitment and vivacity.
By comparison, Kubelik sounds rather correct and staid. He often chooses marginally slower tempos, and his enthusiasm for letting the dance rhytyms become exciting is limited. The Berlin Phil. seems not to catch on to the Slavonic folk idiom, which gets played far too straight (Dvorak had the same problem with Greman orchestras in his lifetime and was only accepted in Vienna and Berlin at first as a kind of naive, folk-flavored Brahms). As to sonics, the Decca set holds up well, being a bit bright at times but otherwise detailed and forward. DG, unforunately, gave Kubelik's later symphonies (#7-9) harsh, glaring sound that makes his readings sound brash; there's an unpleasant sting to the sound at higher volumes. This problem seems less in the earlier symphonies (the cycle was recorded over a longer period than Kertesz's and thus has more variable sound). I do not know if the current re-issue also includes remastering.
It's regrettable that in the interest of economics Decca has cut out several of Kertesz's most interesting fillers, such as the Hussite Over., though they can be found on other CDs from him. We get the Carnival Over. on both sets, after which Kertesz gives us the "My Homeland" and "In Nature's Realm" Over., while Kubelik offers the Scerzo capriccioso and The Wild Dove tone poem, both performed by his Bavarian State Orchestra rather than the Berliners.
As msut be obvious by now, I don't feel the two sets are competitive artistically. Kubelik was a major conductor and dedicated to Dvorak, but his best work isn't here. Kertesz, though not native born to the composer as Kubelik was, found a special affinity for Dvorak, and his cycle is one of the small miracles of Sixties recording. Perhaps not so minor considering that no one has bettered him in the early symphonies for forty years.
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