Dvorak: Symphony No. 7; The Wild Dove.(Sound recording review)

Dvorak: Symphony No. 7; The Wild Dove. Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Warner Classics 3984 21278-2.

In the late 1990s, Nikolaus Harnoncourt turned his attention to the Dvorak symphonies and began recording them live for Teldec with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Warner Classics are now reissuing them on the Warner label, and for the Dvorak fan, they are worth looking into.

Harnoncourt recorded the Seventh Symphony we have here in 1998, before a live audience. Well, the audience is neither here nor there as we never hear a peep from them, perhaps because the orchestra is miked more closely than in many competing live performances. The result is good, well--focused sound that tends to reinforce Harnoncourt's meticulous reading of the score. However, be aware that the conductor seems often to be more concerned about the letter of the music than the spirit of the work. This appeared most conspicuously to me when comparing his rendering of the first two movements with those of Colin Davis on Philips, both men conducting the same orchestra years apart. Fortunately, by the final movement, especially, the differences become more slight. Maybe it took Harnoncourt a ...