Dvorak - Symphony 9 [Mackerras-Prague Symphony Orchestra] This is the first time Dvorak's Ninth appears in my Blog, and this is well overdue, it's my favourite Dvorak Symphony, and this is only the second time i've played this actual disc, but what revelations!, a wonderfully mellow recorded disc, bringing out all sorts of subtleties.
Charles Mackarras was an Australian Conductor, he died 7 months ago at the age of 84, he recorded this live disc in 2005, a nice pleasing photo of Mackerras [by David Port], in a relaxing pose, nicely lit, with some nice shadows on the left, which give depth and show nice contours.
Of course i love the beautiful slow Largo, with its gorgeous cor anglais solo, but... on this listen i was even more thrilled with the Scherzo [Molto Vivace] third movement, like i said earlier, i really like the glow of this recording, it isn't clinical and sharp, there's a certain degree of ambivalence to it, a real autumnal feeling, the Prague Symphony Orchestra doesn't sound large, and there's definitely this space in which the woodwinds can be heard so magically, also the movement fires along at a very brisk pace, and yet it doesn't sound garbled and hurried, just a certain fizz to it all, i guess one of the things i notice more than ever, is the extensive use of the triangle!, right from the beginning of the movement it rings away like an alarm clock, startling and waking me up, and it comes back all over the place, i like the way the woodwind bleat away in morse code [0:08-0:13], and right after the timpani fire off a couple of triple beats [0:21 & 0:24], and these timpani can be well heard, a very nice acoustic echo, the whole opening is repeated again [0:40-1:23], and it's so good to hear the timpani again [1:02-1:05], the middle part of the movement has some glorious rustic music, and i love the way Dvorak uses his woodwinds here, the bassoon shyly introduces us to this section [1:24+], then the cor anglais and clarinet give us one of those immortal tunes [1:29-1:57], these woodwinds are so unassuming in the recording, they let the nostalgic tune do the speaking, i cannot speak highly enough of how this little half a minute makes me feel, this is the highlight of the Symphony for me today, and notice the triangle ringing all over the place, the second part of the middle section brings in another glorious rustic tune, and the frantic strings and the warbling woodwind toss around this tune in a playful way [3:26-3:52 & 4:05-4:30], the opening comes back, and even the middle section has a reprise, it's a movement packed full of goodies, when you slit it's belly open and look inside with an autopsy!.
Here's Herbert Von Karajan conducting the third movement on YouTube.
