Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Slavonic Dances, Series I, Op.46, B.83 (1878), Series II, Op.72, B.147 (1886)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle
rec. 29-31 January (Op.72) and 9-11 April 2025 (Op.46), Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum, Prague
Pentatone PTC 5187 414 [71]

There are so many great recordings of the Slavonic Dances that a newcomer needs to have special insights and a top-notch recording to make his presence felt. Simon Rattle, I’m afraid, possesses neither. I’ve complained before about Pentatone’s failure to master the Rudolfinum’s tricky acoustic and they’ve done it again here. The result is curiously opaque and cloudy with an unwelcome muffly quality that turns overly resonant. I assume the winds are spot-miked as they emerge with startling immediacy from time to time.

Let me take a step back. If you came to these Dances for the first time and were prepared to be more sympathetic to the recorded sound than I am, I think you’d find much to admire. You’d enjoy the vigorous Furiant that opens the cycle, the well-presented counter-themes of the Dumka in E minor and the nicely pointed sousedská in D major, all from the first series. You might also enjoy the artful rubati of the seventh in the first set and Rattle’s broadly unexceptionable tempi. However, comparison should bring doubt. Where is the textual clarity that Szell brings in his 1960s recording – where is his more convincing sense of rubati? Why does Rattle press too hard in the Sixth? Why doesn’t he relax here, as all the greatest interpreters of these two cycles do – Szell, Kubelik, Ančerl (in this first set only – he didn’t record the second commercially), Šejna, Talich in 1950, Mackerras?

If anything, the problems deepen in the second series. Šejna in 1959 is more infectious and lithe in No.9 and the close-up, clear Szell sonics allow for more string immediacy in No.10 where Rattle just sounds woolly, courtesy of the recording.  In No.11 Talich is crisper and builds phrases more naturally whereas Rattle is blunter, more generic and less personalised, skimming the surface. Šejna just has so much more rhythmic lift, vitality and joie de vivre. Rattle’s slightly veiled melancholy in No.12 is all very well but it sounds diffuse and inert. I wouldn’t suggest you need to know Otakar Jeremiáš’ 1940 cycle but he offers a similar sense of grazioso to Rattle here without sounding inert. No one does No.13 like Talich, given that Kubelik’s Bavarians are somewhat problematically recorded and Szell lacks Talich’s naturalness. Mackerras is also deeply attractive here.

So it goes, to the bitter end.  Šejna, Szell and Talich offer orchestral punctuation of an elevated level in No.14 – sharper, brighter and more alert than Rattle’s. And if it’s hardly Rattle’s fault that the Czech Philharmonic of today has lost much of its rustic wind sound, it’s a pity that his recording remains so generalized, so earthbound. Even when he picks up the pace, as he does in No.15, the result is blustery next to Talich’s demarcation of phraseology and promotion of wind colour or Šejna’s liveliness.

One wants to be even-handed about this so I should note that I’ve read elsewhere highly complimentary – even laudatory – reviews of this release so I’m prepared to be in a minority of one but I can’t honestly think of a single reason to buy this disc. Others are more than welcome to feel differently not least because Rattle has proved himself a fine Dvořák conductor but in the words of the financial disclaimer: past performance does not guarantee future results.

Jonathan Woolf 

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