DVORAK: Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104; Slavonic Dances: Op. 46: Nos. 5-8; Op. 72: Nos. 3-4 – Antonio Janigro, cello/Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Dean Dixon (Op. 104)/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Artur Rodzinski
HDTT HDCD201, 76:50 [sev. format choices at: www.highdeftapetransfers.com] ****:
Culled from Westminster LP sources–no date, but presumably early 1960s–HDTT refurbishes the sweet harmonies of Dvorak’s music, opening with the Cello Concerto as performed by Milanese virtuoso Antonio Janigro (1918-1989) and conductor Dean Dixon (1915-1976). The responsive VSOO French horn and string sections project a luxuriant sound, Dixon urging the interior voices much in the esteemed Talich tradition, for those who know that master’s 1950s inscription with a young Mstislav Rostropovich. Janigro’s etched tone enjoys a burnished yet slightly acid surface, a musical pungency and bite that propels the line with nervous intensity. The oboe and cello engage in a brief dialogue prior to the solo’s legato enunciation of the secondary theme, the woodwinds chirping in support of Janigro’s high-spun elegance. The big tuttis, with their eventual shift to B Major have Dixon in full throttle, without his having to sacrifice the expansive nostalgia of the whole. Driving energy takes us to the recapitulation, the VSOO brass quite blazing for the cello’s resigned statement of the second theme over resonant tympani. The coda embraces triumph and fateful resolve at once, a gorgeously illuminated moment in Roman colors.
For many an auditor, the G Major Adagio ma non troppo exacts the most musicality from its participants, a delicate yet exalted meditation for the cello’s most expressive tenor and baritone registers. That Janigro can usher forth a lyrical, thoroughly vocal sound from his high registers without incurring the epithet “nasal” in regard to his suave tone remains his true gift to the art of cello playing. The brass chorale in the middle section breathes new life, with cello and tympani to fill out the harmonies, then moving to the brief solo cadenza which merges with the flute. The later variants on the opening motif from the first movement appear as soft bucolic peregrinations through a world inhabited by Rousseau and Thoreau. The war march that sets the tone for the B Minor/Major Rondo Finale quite fixes our attention between the VSOO horns and the triangle, Janigro’s cello a rapier of sound and controlled fury. No less affecting is the middle section, another of Janigro’s treasures for a musical community that has to remind itself of his enormous talent. As always, Dvorak concludes his late compositions with a cyclical and synoptic retrospect and fairy-tale “moral” to his pastoral and human dramas.
Artur Rodzinski (1892-1958) recorded the series of Slavonic Dances with Beecham’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, though the orchestra’s name changed on Westminster Records to suit legal obligations. Rodzinski opens with the A Major Scocna, Op. 46, No. 5, a bustling dance with pungent interjections. The No. 6 D Major Mazurka sachets gently with its horn accompaniment and lilting ornaments, the individual woodwinds projecting a leisurely canvas from Breughel that achieves no small measure of monumental celebration. No. 7, another Scocna, in C Minor, plays individual woodwinds against each other in gentle syncopation, balanced by no less beguiling colors in running figures. The ensuing mix sounds like cotton candy in Slavic palette, a rustically enchanting village dance. The G Minor Furiant remains a virtuoso orchestra’s calling card, Dvorak’s occasional incursion into Beethoven’s rhythmic powerhouse. The Op. 72, No. 3, offers us a Scocna in F Major that breezes by in ravishing panoply, a kind of Bohemian bird of paradise. Its middle section has an obsessive percolating power that soon crashes in manic energy. The Op. 72, No. 4 in D-flat Major, reigns among Dvorak’s most hymnal creations, a Dumka whose character transforms from a processional to a paean to the redemptive forces of Nature.
— Gary Lemco
