Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances are among the most endearing works in the repertoire. In the 1870s they took London – a musical centre hungry for homely rather than sophisticated emotion – by storm, and their popularity has understandably never diminished. Dvorak’s passion for his homeland was a lifelong inspiration, and although the dances periodically glide towards intimacy and introspection they are for the greater part painted ‘in the sunny out-of-doors on a canvas on which the sun is shining’.
All these qualities are faithfully and affectionately recreated by Isabel Beyer and Harvey Dagul, and if there are times when you can imagine a more incisive or acutely focused brilliance, the absence of all hardness or brittleness and the presence of such warmth and care earns a special gratitude. Adrenalin races in the vivacissimo close to No 1, and the alternating accelerando s and ritard s in No 2 are most idiomatically rendered. The pair are suitably rumbustious in No 8 and their dynamic subtlety in the forte, piano and pianissimo of No 9 is notably engaging. Throughout, you are constantly aware of ‘tonal shading, colouring and intimate musical expression’ (their own words), and the ear quickly adapts to the slightly recessed sound.'