Search - Dvorak, Kubelik, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra :: Symphony 9 " New World "

Kubelik comes home in a warm, nostalgic mood

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/31/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Large chunks of Denon's out-of-print catalog have resurfaced online, and they are a label worth exploring. Here we have a very promising Mozart and Dvorak coupling with Kubelik, a beloved conductor who tends, in my experience, to run hot and cold. The cold in this case might be a "Prague" Sym. that seems to find the conductor in fnostalgic mode. The date is 1992, after the frail septuagenarian had returned home two years earlier to post-Soviet Czechoslovakia. I realize that age doesn't automatically equal loss of vitality, and after trudging through the slow introduction to the first movement, Kubelik applies himself vigorously to the allegro section, which the orchestra plays rather sloppily but warmly. Unlike Walter and most other older conductors, Kubelik doesn't slow down for the sublime second theme. the slow movement is leisurely and old-fashioned in its ambling songfulness. The finale is affectionate and graceful. I enjoyed the performance as a kind of appendage to Bruno Walter's like-minded version on Sony. It won't go down as well with any fan of HIP style, I imagine.



I was more eager to hear Kubelik's last "New World," especially considering my disappointment at his earlier one on DG, hampered by harsh sound and an overly aggressive approach. The bar was set high by recent exposure to a blazing, truly great rendition by Tennstedt and the Berliners on EMI. Kubelik's reading doesn't blaze. The music flows from him, and his orchestra, with naturalness and perfect sympathy. But on technical grounds there isn't much to rejoice in, and again the conductor seems to flag here and there. the best movement is the Largo, where pure affection is telling. The other movements come alive only intermittently. Yet as the Gramophone review noted at the time, every concert by Kubelik in his last decade was a cherished event. Perhaps that's the best way to approach this CD."