Dvorak's ever-popular Slavonic Dances have been well represented in the catalogue as long as I remember, so that interest here will centre mainly on the Suite, called the American. Why this has been so neglected is difficult to understand, for it is charming. (CBS issued a recording—which I have not heard—by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Tilson Thomas which was reviewed in February 1977, but deleted two years later.) Grove lists the work simply as a suite with its opus number. It is not known who christened it the American but the facts, indicating the influence of America on Dvorak's music, seem to justify the title.
He wrote the Suite first as a piano solo when he was still in the USA and Simrock published it in the same year (1894). After his return home in 1895 he orchestrated it, but the orchestral score was not published until 1911 (difficult to understand of a composer who was already so popular) a year after the work's first performance and almost six years after his death. All rather odd. I don't remember having heard the work before and must say it is quite delightful. The five pieces do show this American influence but, like Dvorak's other works composed there, his own engaging personality predominates.
Little need be said about the Slavonic Dances, except that Dorati conducts them well. I particularly like the stylized gait of the start of No. 3, a gait characteristic of so many folk-dances. As to which LP set you may pick, that depends not only on the couplings but whether you like your Dvorak to have a leisurely style; because Kosler on Supraphon adopts by and large considerably slower tempos than the other two, so that there are no extra items (and I did not give his performances or the recording full marks in 1981). Kubelik (DG) and Dorati are both a good deal faster and, speaking generally, Kubelik is the fastest of all, which allows for considerable substance in the two extras included—the Scherzo capriccioso and the overture My Home. Dorati, however, has the novelty, the American Suite which lasts a fraction over 20 minutes and that may decide the question for you, even though the LPs are at full price (the other versions are mid-price).
I do not think Decca have produced quite their best string tone—it has some lack of fullness in the violins, which is surprising since the recording was made in the Kingsway Hall: but as Dvorak depends so much on the woodwind, which is beautifully recorded, that should not worry one too much. I would say I slightly prefer the LP and CD to the cassette, as the latter's range is slightly lacking.'