It's Czech Mate

After a run of outstanding BBC Music mag cover disks, this one is a little more run of the mill. It features Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Czexh repertoire prior to his appointment as their chief conductor. The works on the disk are Dvorak's Symphony No 6 and the symphonic poem Eternal Longing by Dvorak's pupil Vitezslav Novak. Dvorak's sixth is an accomplished symphony which was popular and well received in its' time but was then later eclipsed by his final three symphonies. Posterity tends to have got these things right more often than not and while it is a good symphony it isn't as outstanding as those that followed in terms of invention and memorability. Novak's tone poem draws on folk themes and a prose piece by Hans Christian Andersen concerning the moonlight flight of a swan. It's an engaging, optimistic work and may be the more interesting piece on the disk, the craftmanship of Dvorak's symphony notwithstanding.