This is music that in any half decent performance (and Dohnanyi's is considerably more than that) has you fervently wishing you had been born in Bohemia. Not easy to review either, as the invention is so infectious that the last thing you want to do is stop, look at the score and make comparisons.
Ripe, and several degrees warmer than the complete set recorded in the mid 1960s by Dohnanyi's illustrious antecedent in Cleveland, George Szell (which is still available, uneconomically spread over two mid-price CDs on Pickwick's Duet label (CD) DUET2CD), the playing is hardly less astonishing 25 years on (apart from an errant cymbal in No. 11). The problem with Szell's set was the brittle, hard-edged sound which lent a relentless edge to his very vital performances. There are few worries here on that account: notwithstanding a slightly opaque, crowded feel to the busy tuttis of Nos. 8 and 9; the sound is rich, spacious, full in the bass, and skilfully balanced. How marvellous to hear those grandioso trombones in the allegro vivo (at 3'48'') of No. 2 or the horns and trombones in the swaggering canon at the first ff in No. 7, in both cases without overpowering the rest of the orchestra.
And what glorious tone the Cleveland strings provide in the slower Dumky and Sousedkas, and in the many passages where Dvorak asks for slow moving violin lines under dancing woodwind to be played on the G string. At times, though, I found myself longing for Neumann's (Supraphon/Koch International) fresher, less cultivated expression, no more so than in the lovely Tenth Dance; at a slow tempo (to be fair, Vaclav Talich was even slower in his 1950 Supraphon recording with the Czech Philharmonic) Dohnanyi is molto espressivo (as marked) with creamy strings and rits. at the end of phrases anticipated well in advance. There will be those who will gasp at the beauty of it all, but is it really an allegretto grazioso?
Despite the considerable joys this new version affords, my allegiance to Neumann, and to Kubelik on DG remains. Neumann's is not without its faults: a woodwind accident in the first dance, a Serbian Kolo (No. 15) which is little more than an animated oom-pah, and a recording that is rather dry in the bass. The Czech trumpets are, at times, too loud, but the Supraphon sound has more air in it, and Neumann's unfussy, bright-eyed, festive conducting, in-bred emphasis of the folk rhythms, and the uniquely enchanting Czech woodwind colours make his version an indispensable standard. Kubelik is more imaginative, with the moments of poetry just as beautifully drawn as Dohnanyi, and an excitement and drive in the faster dances (aided by powerful timpani) to make both Neumann and Dohnanyi seem comparatively sedate (one can almost see the robbers' glee in the Odzemek of No. 9). His brass features less strongly, but with an unmatched concern to stress Dvorak's many accents and sforzandos, the illumination of string textures achieved with violin desks separated across the stage, and first-rate DG sound—all this, and at mid price, begs the question: why look elsewhere?'