Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra - cond. Jose Serebrier
Figured I couldn't let Czech week go by without doing some Dvorak, and figured I'd save the later symphonies for some other time. I ended up picking this one because I was curious about the 3 movement structure of the symphony. While I don't think this gels as well as a cohesive whole as his other symphonies there a lot of great little moments in this symphony that makes it worth listening to.
I'm gonna skip the first movement except to say that is reminds me a bit of one of his folk dance settings, with a little more formal ambiguity to it. Otherwise, there wasn't a lot of remarkable thing in the movement. The second movement is kind of peculiar to me, though. This is the longest slow movement he ever wrote, and it is variations on a slow march. I feel like the theme is not Dvorak's strongest, but it works as a vehicle to do a lot of interesting orchestrational variations. In particular, the harp writing in this movement is quite nice and it is all scored in a transparent enough way that it is clear to the listener. Some nice harmonic touches here and there throughout this movement as well. I was wondering if the march element was a justification for the lack of a scherzo, since, while slow, it isn't especially somber or anything.
The final movement is a Rondo, and my favorite movement. There are many elements in here that almost sound like a opera overture, but thematically, this seems the most like Dvorak to me. The variety is pretty exciting and there a bits of 3 against 2 metric feels that are interesting as well. The scoring, especially towards the end skews pretty high, and becomes a bit shrill at spots. But everyone in the orchestra gets little spots to shine in here, and overall it is quite a bit of fun. If you're running low on time, this seems like would be fun to listen to as a stand alone movement.
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