If this seems an odd mixture of works for John Eliot Gardiner's first recording as chief conductor of the North German Radio orchestra, it amply demonstrates the responsiveness and refinement of the players as well as Gardiner's imagination in what for him seems an unexpected area of the romantic orchestral repertory. Here he draws out the sweetness and sheen of the strings of the Hamburg orchestra in a very different way, as well as he might.
Not only that, his approach to this music, and to the Variations in particular, is unusually volatile, with subtle moulding of rhythm and phrase, and with rubato often extreme if always natural-sounding. With speeds on the brisk side and regularly getting brisker, the variations have more sparkle and fun in them than I can ever remember. I found myself thinking of parallels with Elgar's Enigma Variations, not that the Czech flavour is underplayed in what in effect becomes a whirlwind sequence of miniature slavonic dances. The brief Lento introduction is taken at a flowing tempo, and so is the Variation No. 14 (Lento molto tranquillo). The massive contrasts of the following Variation No. 15, with its weighty brass chords, are then powerfully thrust home. Altogether a remarkable, totally winning performance, even if traditionalists may prefer a plainer, more measured approach, such as Zdenck Macal adopts on his CfP version.
Gardiner's speeds are on the fast side in the Czech Suite too. He is not only consistently brisker than Pesek on the Virgin issue, but generally lighter and more affectionate too, bringing out the playful element in the fifth movement Furiant (Presto). Again it is possible that some may find the results too sophisticated for this folk-based music, but again Gardiner is very persuasive. So too in the Brahms Hungarian Dances, though it is a pity that the fill-up could not have been more Dvorak. As it is, the last four of the Brahms sequence (Nos. 18-21) come in Dvorak's arrangements, again with contrasts of dynamic and mood underlined in a positive, dramatic way. These dances are not always helped by the rather bass-heavy, reverberant sound, and there are passages in the Variations too where the results are not quite as sharply-defined as one ideally wants, even if the sound is always comfortable. Whether or not recorded later, the Czech Suite is clearer. A promising start for Gardiner's new recording career in Hamburg.'