page_title: Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration
section_title: Critical reception
hierarchical_section_title: Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration / Critical reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Smetana Hall at the Municipal House (Obecn&#237; Dum), Prague
context_page_description: Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration was an 89-minute televised concert presented in Prague's Smetana Hall on 16 December 1993, in which thirteen pieces of music by Antonin Dvořák were performed by the pianist Rudolf Firkušný, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the violinist Itzhak Perlman, the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, the Prague Philharmonic Chorus and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. It was produced by Sony Classical Film and Video, Czech Television and Germany's Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen in association with Pragokoncert, the Netherlands' Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep and the United States' Public Service Broadcasting and MJI Broadcasting, and was released on Laserdisc, VHS video cassette, CD and audio cassette by Sony Classical Records and on DVD by Kultur Video.
context_section_description: Herbert Glass reviewed a PBS telecast of the concert in The Los Angeles Times on 18 March 1994. It was to the gala's credit, he wrote, that it eschewed "the usual talky, self-congratulatory promo" in favour of a programme of unadulterated music. Not a word was spoken during the performance, not even to mention the event that it commemorated, the premiere of Dvořák's "New World" symphony in New York City exactly one hundred years previously.
  The producers of the concert did not seem to trust their public to enjoy Dvořák's music, easy to appreciate it though it was, without adapting at least some of it. For example, a Humoresque for solo piano was changed into a piece for violin, cello and orchestra, presumably in order to create an opportunity for Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma to play a duet together. It was odd, too, that the Largo from the "New World" symphony was played over the opening credits of the gala as well as in the body of it.
  The audience in Smetana Hall (including the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel) were allowed to hear at least some of Dvořák's music precisely as he had written it. His Romance in F was "poignantly" delivered by Itzhak Perlman, and Yo-Yo Ma played Silent Woods "with a stunning, seamless legato, a vibrato measurable on the Richter Scale and his patented facial choreography".
  Dvořák's vocal œuvre was represented by the "lusty" Prague Philharmonic Chorus in a "majestic" setting of Psalm 149, and by Frederica von Stade, who "nearly [stole] the show with her radiant delivery of Rusalka's "Song to the Moon", in which Ozawa and the [Boston Symphony Orchestra proved] the most sensitive accompanists". Von Stade also sang two of Dvořák's Gypsy Songs, partnered at the piano by the octogenarian Czech Rudolf Firkušný.
  Thomas Frost and his audio team deserved praise for "creating an exceptionally handsome-sounding classical music video".
  The concert was also discussed in Billboard, Classical Music Magazine, Fanfare, Krasnogruda, New York, The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
caption: The Smetana Hall
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