The digital version of Dvorak's New World Symphony that I have found myself returning to most over recent months features the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur. That 1991 Teldec recording is currently unavailable (although a video equivalent is still listed), but Claudio Abbado runs Masur a pretty close second. Indeed, some collectors may even prefer him.
As with Masur, Abbado's performance was recorded live, though it has taken almost three years to reach us. Both conductors observe the first movement's exposition repeat, but where Masur is fairly laid back, Abbado favours a more generous quota of drama. He is also rather more attentive to instrumental detail.
I think, in particular, of the forte bassoons that drive towards the first big statement of the Allegro molto's principal theme (2'22'') and the expressive second-violin line that leads into the second set (2'50''). Listen also to how the violins kick in at 9'08'' into the recapitulation, and to the sheer power of the coda (though there are no crescendos to the trumpet line at 11'27''). The Scherzo's 'echoes' (woodwinds answering strings) are very carefully balanced, which greatly clarifies the dramatic effect of Dvorak's writing. Abbado doesn't so much slow down for secondary episodes as relax into them, but the most telling detail occurs in the second movement, at the brow of a big crescendo (9'28'') where the strings - and basses in particular - audibly keep the basic pulse going. On most other recordings, the timpani drown everyone else virtually out of existence.
But there is more to Abbado's New World than mere detail. The Largo's entire central episode is memorably elegiac: beam up 6'47'', then follow the music until the first violins take up thesecondary theme over a shimmering accompaniment. No recent recording says it more beautifully. True, the finale doesn't quite match Aneerl's for stealth or judicious timing, but the last minutes truly blaze, and the closing chord fades to a skilfully tapered diminuendo.
Othello is driven with the sort of intuitive sense of drama that characterises Abbado's best Brahms, and the closing pages are truly stirring. All in all, it's a good CD, very well recorded and recommendable to all except those who hold particular interpretative preferences for the New World. Ensemble among the strings isn't always watertight (this is, after all, a live performance), but the playing of the Berlin Philharmonic is generally first-rate. Were I to prepare a revised Collection feature, Abbado and Masur would be among my top digital recommendations. But don't forget Aneerl on Supraphon, still 'top dog' for a stereo New World.
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