Steve Schwartz responds to me concerning a Dvorak concert I attended:

>>Dvorak was made to sound like a sophisticated and urbanized man with
>>well-buttoned social conventions.
>
>I find such a performance view perfectly valid and, indeed, a welcome
>alternative to the 'butcher's boy, warbling his native woodnotes wild"
>picture of the composer.

I wasn't trying to suggest that Dvorak should be performed as if he was
carving up beef in the woods.  However, I do much prefer Dvorak's music to
be presented with 'exuberance, edge, and guts'.  Most important, I'd like
the performance to be evocative of a love of nature, not of a sleek
high-rise office building.

Has Steve or anyone else heard the Pacifica Quartet's recording on Cedille
of Dvorak's string chamber music? Their performances don't sit well with me
compared to the Prague Quartet's cycle of the Dvorak String Quartets on DG.

Don Satz
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