Dvořák composed the ten around the spring of 1881 completed Legends originally for piano duet, which he orchestrated shortly thereafter at the request of his music publisher Simrock, who was looking to repeat the success of the Slavonic Dances. However, this success did not match that of the dances, and remarkably little has changed since then, for strangely enough, the Legends are not part of the basic repertoire of most orchestras. Yet one would think they have everything it takes to achieve real popularity, for this is also music rooted in Dvořák's Bohemian idiom, as evidenced by its colorful and folkloric-tinged melody and equally imaginative orchestration.
The three Slavonic Rhapsodies (1878) are indeed grouped under a single opus number, but thematically they have little in common, setting aside their rhapsodic character. These rhapsodies too do not enjoy great popularity, but they are certainly colorful, bearing unmistakable influences from Bedřich Smetana, equally rooted in his homeland's music (Dvořák undoubtedly heard the premiere of his Má vlast between 1875 and 1877) but also from the virtuosic Liszt, who may not have invented the rhapsody but certainly left an indelible mark on it.
Tomáš Netopil is an outstanding conductor with Czech roots, qualities that unfortunately come across less prominently in these recordings. The responsibility lies with both Netopil and the recording engineers.
Starting with the conductor himself: his interpretation of theLegends comes across rather flat through the speakers, certainly not helped by the recording which, as in the subsequent rhapsodies, pairs too little definition with a lack of transparency. As if listening through fairly thick curtains. But interpretively, Netopil's characterization here is indeed the real bottleneck, because much more can be made of this so pictorialLegends as demonstrated by, among others, Iván Fischer, Jakub Hrůša, Charles Mackerras and Rafael Kubelik. Or to go back even further: the magnificent Karel Sejna with the same orchestra, albeit a mono recording from January 1956, just like this new album recorded in the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum in Prague (I own the LP released by Supraphon). With the curious observation that that mono recording yields better focusing and positioning of the orchestral apparatus than the diffuse Pentatone recording.
The three rhapsodies fared better in terms of interpretation, which can possibly be explained by their considerably broader scope, each section lasting around thirteen minutes. The expansively laid out melodic lines speak for themselves and Netopil made full use of them, but he also succeeded in giving Czech folklore a more exuberant profile. The quality of the recording remains wanting unfortunately this time as well, possibly due to the acoustically apparently difficult-to-manage hall, though you'd think that Pentatone would have gained more than enough experience with that by now. Anyway, so it goes.
