Ancerl does Dvorak music for dead guys

Hi all,

Last night's listening session included side one of a 2-LP set I picked up at a thrift store a few weeks back: a DGG tulip stereo of Ancerl and the Czech Philharmonic doing Dvorak's Requiem, apparently recorded in 1959. I wanted to hear more, but my listening buddy wanted to go on to other types of music

Lord, yes. Are you kidding? If this hadn't been issued on CD, I'd be whining it here on a weekly basis (well, probably not, because I discovered the performance on CD...)

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Well, six out of the ten of Op. 99, and unfortunately sung in the wrong language. Dvorak's prosody fits the Czech texts (apparently a standard Bible translation into that language) much, much better than the paraphrases that Simrock included to make the music salable elsewhere.

I find Dvorak's Stabat Mater a stronger work all around than the Requiem, which nevertheless deserves an occasional hearing (especially in a recording as committed as this one). And at least Dvorak's Requiem is a better work than those of, say, Schumann, Saint-Saëns, or Bruckner!

The 'Quam olim Abrahae' is a fantastic and horribly difficult and exhausting choral fugue, and in his attempt to kill everyone in the chorus Dvorak requires them to sing it TWICE, in rapid succession - once to conclude the Offertorium, and again to conclude the Hostias just a few minutes later.

Well, Ancerl recorded it at least twice in CD-rereleased versions, and the other one is pretty terrible. Not a Czech group, as I remember.

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Well, that's a feature of the text, isn't it?