The program looks enticing, but in the event proves disappointing. Dvorák’s Sixth symphony has enjoyed many excellent performances, and not just from Czech conductors and orchestras. There are Kertesz and Rowicki (both with the LSO), for example, or Suitner (Staatskapelle Berlin) and Dohnanyi (Cleveland), as well as several others I could name. Jac van Steen has the right idea in choosing lively tempos for the most part, and in securing clean rhythms from the strings; but the orchestra desperately wants character. For example, the fortissimo counterstatement of the first movement’s main theme lacks punch because the brass sound timid. The scherzo is fleet, but van Steen fails to hit the syncopated rhythms hard enough. Dvorák’s bass lines, so present in Ancerl’s version (and so important to the music argument), have little presence.
The same situation applies to the three overtures, only more so. In Nature’s Realm, the lightest of them, at least has charm, but Carnival sounds mechanical and cautious, at a tempo that’s fractionally too slow. The performers don’t project a shred of the work’s uninhibited abandon. Othello, like the scherzo of the symphony, has speed without notable intensity. The engineering, quite warm and natural, reveals that the problems lie solely with the performers. There’s nothing unprofessional about the Dortmund Philharmonic’s effort here–unidiomatic rather–but I have a strong suspicion that they felt that a Dvorák program offered fewer challenges than, say, Brahms or Schumann. Untrue. The music requires just as much artistry, and the interpretive standards already evident on disc are exceptionally high. They should either be prepared to rise to that level, or not waste our time.
