Annotator Paula Kennedy informs us that when Dvorak revised his Second Symphony (22 years after completing it), he imposed severe cuts on the finale, whereas “the slow movement and scherzo were left relatively unchanged”. Looking at Libor Pesek’s timings, we note that the Allegro con brio third movement plays for 14'17'', while the finale clocks up a mere 11'04''. Could it be that Dvorak’s excisions unbalanced the work, and that had he chosen to cut the Scherzo as well, he might have restored some sense of structural precision? As it happens, the third movement – an attractive piece with a positively Elgarian main theme – seems rather tame here, certainly in comparison with Vaclav Neumann (the first conductor to record the work), Istvan Kertesz and Witold Rowicki, the latter taking 0'59'' over the excited introduction while Pesek dawdles at 1'15''.
Viewed as a whole, the Second Symphony combines patches of Dvorakian sunshine (who else could have penned the exposition’s folky second subject?) with hints of Wagner, Beethoven (end of the Scherzo), Berlioz (8'56'' into the Poco adagio) and, most particularly, Schumann: join the first movement at 14'39'' and you could easily be listening to an undiscovered Schumann symphony. And yet even considering the longueurs and occasionally laboured sequences, Dvorak’s B flat spells adventure, exploration and the faltering steps of a budding genius. Perhaps that is why the first movement’s unexpected pick-me-up coda (15'34'') so reminded me of that perennially Brave Young Man of twentieth-century music, Charles Ives – and especially of his profoundly Dvorakian Second Symphony.
As to Pesek’s performance, there are countless instances of well-considered interpretation (nicely cushioned strings-winds dialogue at 4'10'' into the Poco adagio, for example), all set within a well-blended recording; but the sum effect remains oddly muted. Compare Neumann’s 1987 Czech PO and you encounter sharper characterization, a more distinctive orchestral profile and a higher energy level. Turn then to Istvan Kertesz, and the narrative becomes even more animated, and if you graduate further to Witold Rowicki, then you hear a truly committed performance, one where everything is so alert, alive and keenly articulated that you could almost be listening to a completely different piece. In my books, Rowicki’s Dvorak Second (now on an invaluable Philips Duo coupled with Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3) is absolutely unrivalled. Pesek’s account of My Home is a good one, but hardly good enough to alter the balance of recommendations.'