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Review by tream September 12, 2005 (6 of 6 found this review helpful)
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| Performance wise, this is a winner. Davis and the LSO provide a passionate performance of this symphony (more akin to the 8th than to the 7th or 9th, in my view). The playing is excellent, with surging strings and limpid wind solos. Tempos are brisk, phrasing straightforward but without a trace of boredom. The sound is better than the one other recording in this series I've heard (the Brahms 4), more distant, much less strident, but also slightly congested in the tutti passages. Playing time at 46 minutes is short, but still a recommended disc. Buy this before you get a 3rd or 4th "New World" and maybe we'll get other Dvorak symphonies on SACD. Listened to in multichannel.
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Review by Chris April 30, 2005 (5 of 5 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics:  |
Yet another absolute winner from LSO Live! Dvorak's underrated sixth Symphony that has for too long stood in the shadow of the more famous 8th and 9th Symphonies,is played with real fire and gusto by the LSO under Colin Davis and emerges as a work of real stature IMO.It is really great to hear what is, apart from some possible patching here and there,a recording that sounds like listening to a real live performance.
The sixth may not be quite the masterwork the 9th is.
But for all its obvious influence from Dvorak's mentor Brahms,(and a bit of Beethoven too,there is an almost literal quote from Beethoven's Egmont in the first movement among other things) it has got lots of unmistakable and pure Dvorak too,with wonderfully lilting Bohemian tunes ,a whirlwind Scherzo marked Furiant that sounds like it is taken from one of his famous Slavonic Dances, and an absolutely brilliant finale.
The recording as before from this source is very close but admirably clear and very truthful if you accept the rather dry acoustics of the Barbican.
Although maybe not as expansive as one might ideally wish ,there is at least on my equipment, and in plain stereo, not even the slightest tendency for the sound to break up or harden even at the loudest fortissimos.
On the contrary every instrument of the orchestra sounds very realistic from pp to ff.
On this site this recording is listed as being a PCM transfer.But my SACD liner notes say pure DSD?
To me it sounds like pure DSD,ie I have nothing to complain about regarding the actual sound quality captured.
If I'm proven wrong I'll rest my case regarding digititis on PCM as being something inherent to the format.
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