Fischer, Ivan - conductor
Budapest Festival Orchestra

Budapest Festival Orchestra
Ivan Fischer -  conductor

Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)
Symphony no. 8 & no. 9 ‘From the New World’ Symphony no. 8 in G major, op. 88

*Licensed from Decca Music Group Limited, a division of Universal Music Group – original cat. no. 470 617-2

This pair of symphonies was written solely to satisfy Dvořák’s own poetic muse. In the keys of G major and its relative minor, E minor, they can be regarded as representing two sides of the same coin. The Eighth, composed in Dvořák’s summer residence at Vysoká deep in the Bohemian countryside, is indisputably “From the Old World” and rooted in Central Europe — “a work singing of the joy of green pastures, of summer evenings, of the melancholy of blue forests, of the defiant merry-making of the Czech peasants”, to quote the conductor Václav Talich, while the Ninth, composed in the claustrophobic surroundings of New York and intended as a greeting “From the New World”, is steeped in the composer’s “unappeasable yearning for his native soil” (from: liner notes)
 

Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)
Symphony no. 8 & no. 9 ‘From the New World’ Symphony no. 8 in G major, op. 88

(...) Geweldig!! Vindt de Achtste zijn muzikale weerslag in de oude wereld, de Negende in de nieuwe wereld, maar beide zijn doorspekt van een niet te stillen verlangen naar zijn geboortegrond. Heel goed voorstelbaar en aanstekelijk!
HVT

 (…) Een uitvoering van één van de mooiste orkesten van de wereld en Fischer is één van de grote maestro’s van onze tijd, die uitblinkt in het Slavische repertoire. Een klassieker.
Luister 10

Inside the cover of this disc is a map of old New York. Here is East 17th Street, where Dvorák wrote his Ninth Symphony, ‘From the New World’ in 1893. It's a red herring, as it happens, for Iván Fischer's performance with the Budapest Festival Orchestra looks East, exploring the influence of Tchaikovsky on the Czech composer. This is a startling reading, brilliantly coloured and thrillingly balanced. Dvorák's American motifs acquire a dark, Slavonic tang, while the resinous scents of the Eighth are intoxicating.
The Independent