Dvořák: Symphony No. 3 - Glazunov: Saxophone Concerto - Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Albumbeschreibung

Czech label Supraphon's Archiv imprint promises to bring reissues of recordings from the early Communist era in Czechoslovaki, a period that was in many ways a golden age for symphonic music there. The one caution here is that nothing on the packaging tells those unfamiliar with the performers that the recordings date from between 1953 and 1962. The sound is impressive for the period; the Dvorák Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 10, was recorded in Prague's acoustically superior Rudolfinium and has impressive depth even if the brass sound is somewhat buzzy. The Glazunov Saxophone Concerto in E flat major, Op. 109, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue are studio recordings, and even the Gershwin, the earliest of the three, is clear and quite listenable. It is Rhapsody in Blue that's the biggest surprise here. Gershwin has always been popular in England and France, but recordings from Eastern Europe are a good deal less common, and this one, entirely different from the mainstream American recordings of the day by the likes of Oscar Levant, is a true find. Conductor Václav Smetácek sculpts the work into small, atomized details; it loses its jazz momentum but gains all kinds of subtleties of construction that have very rarely been teased out elsewhere. Try, for example, the work's big major-key subsidiary theme, in almost all recordings either milked for maximum sentiment or revisionistically taken to the opposite extreme. Smetácek and pianist Jan Panenka instead link it to the unusually long, quasi-improvisatory passage that leads up to it, with the orchestra entering very tentatively and quietly and only gradually gaining emotion. The Glazunov in the hands of saxophonist Karel Krautgartner is an elegant pleasure, and Smetácek makes an excellent case for the Dvorák Symphony No. 3, one of the composer's less often performed. Strongly recommended for collectors with an interest in the performance histories of any of these works.
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