Grim But Not Grimm

From the BBC Music mag part of the shelf and they are still in warhorse mode. This time out it is excerpts from Smetana's Ma Vlast including of course Vltava. Won't add to what I have posted about the commercial recording that I have of this but the performers here are the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britan conducted by Sir Roger Norrington, so no vibrato ! The young orchestra plays excellently though. Also on the disk is more Czech music with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra playing two Dvorak tone poems, The Wood Dove ( conductor Ilan Volkov ) and The Noon Day Witch ( under Alexander Titov ). These are settings of pretty gruesome tales by Erben, a kind of Czech equivalent to the brothers Grimm. Apparently, Dvorak originally set the words but then took them away to leave the bones of the melodies from which the tone poems are fashioned. Late Dvorak, these pieces are impressively scored.