Symphony No.6 in D, Op.60 / The Water Goblin

Hybrid/SACD - playable on all compact disc players
DSD recorded

Edtor's Choice Gramophone Magazine October 2008

"Yakov Kreizberg turns in a personal, persuasive account of the Sixth Symphony. The first movement, with its exposition repeat intact, features strong contrasts in tempo between its first and second subjects, but Kreizberg always manages to get back to the basic allegro tempo and handles the transitions very skillfully. He's very attentive to Dvorák's thematically important bass lines, and this enhances the music's contrapuntal interest...this is a fine performance, beautifully played and recorded (in all formats). A very enjoyable disc." (ClassicsToday 9/9 July 2008)

Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904) is the second in a row of four consecutive generations of composers who supplied the Czech Republic with its musical reputation: Smetana, Dvorák, Janácek and Martinù. Until he turned 37, Dvorák was no more than a Prague musician, a viola-player in the National Opera Orchestra. In his free time, he composed; he had already written five symphonies, but no-one was really interested in them.

In 1878, Johannes Brahms - who was at the time the advisor with regard to the awarding of state study grants in the Austrian empire (to which the Czech Republic belonged) - was presented with one of Dvorák's compositions, entitled Moravian Duets. Brahms decided to support Dvorák. In addition, he put him in touch with a publisher in Vienna. Subsequently, Dvorák submitted a number of compositions entitled Slavonic Dances, which won him the approval of the public. These compelling pieces made such an impression on leading conductor Hans Richter, that he commissioned Dvorák to write a symphony for the Vienna Philharmonic. The work was completed by the late summer of 1880. This was to become Dvorák's sixth symphony, although it was only the first to be published, following its world première in Prague in 1881. The symphony was performed successfully all over the place, and from that time onwards the composer was included in the "walhalla" of European music.