Checking the booklet timing, the Sixth Symphony’s first movement brought an instant smile to my face, assuming as I did (rightly) that Serebrier had opted to observe the exposition repeat. Without it – and we’re talking a pretty expansive exposition here – the movement’s structure is compromised. The reading itself is energetic and well paced, though I would have preferred a less marked broadening when Dvořák has his principal theme blossom among the full orchestra. In this one respect at least, Vladimír Válek on his Supraphon recording with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra – part of a variable but generally underrated complete cycle – is rather more subtle. Then again, Serebrier takes an intimate view of the Adagio, bringing it in line with some of Dvořák’s finest chamber music: the gentle fanning among winds and brass that opens the movement is a good example of what I mean and so is the expressive take-up when the strings enter. Buoyant rhythms keep the last two movements alive and dancing, with excellent playing from the Bournemouth Symphony, though readers who, like me, cannot hear this music without the verdant profile of Czech woodwinds springing to mind will still want to retain their Šejna, Neumann, Ančerl, Mackerras and Válek recordings.

Right from the opening bars, the Third Symphony enjoys a warm blend of instrumental sonorities, though Václav Smetáček’s premiere stereo recording captures more of the music’s Mendelssohnian lightness. By the time they reach the last three or so minutes of the first movement, Serebrier and his players seem just a little weighed down by what are admittedly some of Dvořák’s least compelling arguments, though in the Symphony’s most blatantly awkward passage (involving brass and woodwinds flailing around uncomfortably at 7'02" and a little beyond into the finale, where Válek, at a significantly slower tempo, rather loses the thread), they sensibly keep up the pace. Still, what a rich trove of loveable ideas this symphony is and anyone learning the work from this recording will certainly enjoy its sunniest side. A good CD, the Sixth possibly the best performance so far in Serebrier’s evolving Dvořák symphony cycle.