Wonderful music by Dvorak today. From a VoxBox, early 60's issue, comes the Berkshire Quartet in Dvorak's Double Bass Quintet and Twelve Cypresses.
I love Dvorak so much because his music has the strength to transport me to his homeland and smell and see the beauty of Bohemia. Such is the case here with these two(actually there are 12 Cypresses but I am counting them as "1" whole piece) seldom heard works. The Double Bass Quintet, of course, augments the quartet by adding a double bass and it is a novel and refreshing idea. The Twelve Cypresses are arrangements of songs for quartet and these delightful miniatures capture brief moments and emotions from the composer's life with intimacy, warmth and directness.
The Berkshire Quartet plays with an authentic and idiomatic sound. I admittedly was not familiar with this ensemble and thought them to be a "Tanglewood" based ensemble that was briefly here and now gone. Interestingly it was the first incarnation of the Berkshire Quartet by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge that was based in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. The group on this recording was the successor group to the Gordon Quartet who, after the founder Jacques Gordon's death, found themselves in dire straits. Ms Coolidge offered to rescue them with the priviso that they become the "new" Berkshire Quartet. As part of the bargain, the quartet spent the school year at Indiana University and returned east to Music Mountain Connecticut for the annual summer chamber music festival which Gordon had founded.
One frustration I have is that these VoxBox sets, especially from the late 60's into the 70's were pressed on inferior vinyl and the records often ended with lots of extraneous noise. Such was the case here and after running the sides through ClickRepair several times, I achieved better results then the vinyl but still surface noise does remain. Please do not let that interfere with gorgeous music performed by top flight artists.
DOWNLOAD Part 1
DOWNLOAD Part 2
