Like Ofra Harnoy’s recent RCA version of the Dvorak (see above), this one has a fancy title, but a much more pointful one, “Concertos from the New World”, and in place of the twigs through which Harnoy peered, here you have Ma set amid foliage. I hope I am not missing some deeper meaning, but seriously this latest version is among the very finest yet, matched by few and outshining most, including Ma’s own ten-year-old version with Maazel and the Berlin Philharmonic. It is fascinating to compare Ma’s two versions side by side, the new one more readily conveying weight of expression despite the less spotlit placing of the soloist, more disciplined yet more spontaneous-sounding. That is most strikingly so in the first movement which takes exactly a minute less than before, and that in spite of a sluggish account of the great second subject theme on the horn in the opening tutti. I miss the extreme hush of pianissimo at the start of the soloist’s statement of the second subject, but this time Ma’s expressiveness is simpler and more noble, not just there but in the lovely minor-key reference to that same theme in the development (track 1, 9'23''). The other two movements also flow more easily this time, and to my surprise the recording (made in Avery Fisher Hall, New York), once a trouble-spot for engineers, is fuller and more open than the Berlin one, cleaner in tuttis, with only a touch of unwanted dryness on high violins.
Ma and Masur together encompass the work’s astonishingly full expressive range, making it the more bitingly dramatic with high dynamic contrasts. The Victor Herbert Concerto also receives a high-powered performance, but one which does not overload the romantic element with sentiment, whether in the brilliant and vigorous outer movements or in the warmly lyrical slow movement, with its themes like love-songs from Herbert’s operettas translated. Ma’s use of rubato is perfectly judged, with that slow movement made the more tender at a flowing speed. The finale is then given a quicksilver performance, both brilliant and urgent. This magnificent performance could not be more welcome, and when Herbert’s concerto, first given in 1894, was almost certainly what set Dvorak writing his own concerto later that same year triumphantly demonstrating the viability of the genre, the coupling could not be more apt either.'