These are very good performances, no doubt about it, but the competition in this repertoire is very, very strong. In the Variations, Marin Alsop’s flexibility of tempo finds larger spans within the sequence of individual, short vignettes, and this really does give the work the “symphonic” feel that Dvorák obviously intended. The orchestra also plays very well, and my only criticism here is that Alsop takes the concluding fugue just a bit too placidly. It needs to bounce along with greater drive, though the final pages bring the piece to a satisfying conclusion.
The symphony also has many impressive moments. Alsop’s first movement is rhythmically tight and, in the development section and coda, genuinely exciting. The Largo is very poetic, with a lovely English horn solo and plenty of loving detail in the string phrasing. I found the scherzo a touch faceless, the canonic imitations in the woodwinds and basses insufficiently emphasized and the rhythms not quite sharp enough, but the finale sounds very impressive, with the big climax just before the coda perhaps a touch rushed. The live engineering gives a fair picture of the orchestra in Meyerhoff Hall, save that the horns are balanced too backwardly. In sum: nothing notably wrong, and a lot right, but you can still do better.
