Christopher Warren-Green offers a generally pleasing pair of Dvorák Serenades, with well-chosen (if sometimes dreamy) tempos and buoyant energy throughout. Both works benefit from Warrren-Green’s idiomatic phrasing and keen sense of color, which highlight the music’s varied timbres and moods. The String Serenade’s famous waltz movement lilts along gracefully, while the gorgeous Andante from the Serenade for Winds features some finely cultivated solo playing. Unfortunately Chandos’ heavily reverberant recording blurs a good deal of the strings’ all-important rhythmic detail and renders the wind band with an immensity that Dvorák surely never intended. (How much more incisive Neville Marriner’s and Hugh Wolff’s cleanly recorded performances sound in comparison.) Too bad, because the Philharmonia plays handsomely throughout, with each featured section making a good show in its respective work. Big-sound fanciers will get a kick out of this disc, even more so now that it’s at mid-price.
