During the analogue LP era Rafael Kubelik's highly distinguished LP set of the symphonies Dvorak symphonies tended to lie in the shadow of the famous Decca LSO/Kertesz recordings and in consequence the first six works were never issued in separate LP format. While it is true that in these earlier and more uneven works Kertesz brought an inspirational imaginative touch, and his success undoubtedly helped to establish Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6 in the concert hall (after long neglect), it would be wrong to underestimate Kubelik's achievement. His accounts of the last three symphonies have long been highly praised for their freshness, natural lyrical warmth and lack of self-conscious idiosyncrasy and the earlier works show much the same qualities.
The excellent CD transfers now bring a chance of re-assessment and they offer, as a bonus equally fine versions of the Carnival Overture, the Scherzo capriccioso and The wood dove recorded with the Bavarian orchestra in the Munich Herculessaal. The symphonies were recorded in DG's most famous analogue venue, the Berlin Jesus Christus Kirche; they are expertly balanced and the sound remains very good although, as so often with digital remastering, the bass seems drier and less resonant than on the LPs. But the ambience remains to lend an atmospheric lustre to woodwind and strings alike which reveals the wonderful body of tone the superb Berlin orchestra can produce in the right acoustic setting. Again and again in the slow movements of the earlier symphonies often long (that for No. 3, taken as a true Adagio lasts for nearly 18 minutes), the glorious playing of this great orchestra, especially the strings, sustains the music-making as at a live performance.
Kubelik has a natural sympathy for Dvorakian rhythms; in the finales of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4, where the composer creates something like a rhythmic straitjacket, he avoids heaviness most skilfully, while in the more characteristic dance derivations, such as the Furiant Scherzo of No. 6 and even in the almost blatant Scherzo of No. 1 (which sounds a bit like Liszt), marked Allegro feroce, he avoids vulgarity without losing impetus. In Symphony No. 2 all four movements open with a slow section, not an ideal plan, but Kubelik creates a sense of expectancy in the underlying tension of the playing. His approach is often relaxed and often more spacious than with Kertesz but never does the listener feel that forward momentum is faltering. The extraneous influences of Wagner (notably in the slow movement of No. 4) and of Brahms, in No. 6, are fully assimilated and one always has the feeling of Dvorak being in charge of his source material, his personality dominant. Perhaps in the first movement of No. 3 Kubelik's broad view loses some of the bite, but one is soon caught up by the warm lyricism of the orchestral playing.
In short, these performances are always involving and consistently refreshing and the relatively light textures help this effect, even if at times one would have liked a weightier bass. As it so happens the New World, one of the last to be recorded, has the fullest sound, No. 8, recorded six years earlier, has a tighter upper-string timbre now brightly lit—most noticeable in the singing melody at the centre of the Scherzo. But taken by and large there are no real technical grumbles and with the nine symphonies on six mid-price discs the value is obvious. The one drawback is that the layout splits Nos. 4 and 5 between discs and in the case of No. 5 the change comes just before the finale.'