One can think of lots of reasons why Dvorak's symphonic poems have never attained the recognition or popularity of those by Richard Strauss. Erben's gruesome ballads (printed in their entirety in the Supraphon booklet) didn't afford Dvorak much range for depth of human characterization; equally, as Tovey put it, ''programme music... either coheres as music or it does not'', and there are, perhaps, a few too many seams in Dvorak's musical narrative.
Conversely there are plenty of good reasons to value them. Of course, there's the inimitable stream of heart-easing melody. But, more importantly, alongside the obvious debt to Liszt and Wagner, their harmonic boldness and magical instrumental effects look forward to Suk, Martinu and Janacek. Indeed, it is tempting to pontificate that they are vital to an appreciation of the development of Czech music.
Gregor is a rather sober Dvorakian. Tempos are chosen for confident articulation and, aided by close-up Supraphon sound, there's far more detail here than on Jarvi's two-disc Chandos set. One admires the precision and clarity of the downward rush of demi-semiquavers in The noon witch's last bar, but the shiver factor is low for the witch's materialization (at 5'40''), where the oscillating quavers on strings are just that, no more. (The scalp truly tingles under Jarvi.) To adapt—dangerously—Tovey's maxim: if the drama of programme music is sufficiently vivid, then matters of musical coherence may well take care of themselves. A case in point is the apparently improvisatory short Lento assai in The water goblin (at 14'40''—the sad reunion of mother and daughter). How much more expression Jarvi manages in the short exchanges of sorrowful cellos and querulous woodwind. Gregor's less imaginative shaping has the passage feeling like one of Dvorak's bolder risks that doesn't quite come off, with consequent damage to dramatic (and musical) continuity.
I can't raise much enthusiasm either for the earlier trio of concert overtures. The Czechs sound corporately dispirited by a measured metronomic rigidity for In nature's realm. Carnival doesn't exult and Othello has plenty of weight, but is short on dramatic thrust. The Supraphon engineering is not as flattering to the Czech strings as recent efforts from Chandos and Virgin Classics—in The golden spinning-wheel they sound particularly thin (reminiscent of early Decca stereo).
As I write, Kubelik's 1970s DG recordings of all these works, including the Hussite Overture and the Symphonic Variations are about to appear in a mid-price two-CD set—now that should be worth waiting for!'