On track: A gem for Dvorak centenary

By WILLIAM DART

Dvorak's centenary has occasioned everything from marathon concerts in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to Jose Cura singing the Opus 83 Love Songs and conducting the New World Symphony on his latest CD.

Fellow Argentinian, mezzo Bernarda Fink, has no ambitions to mount podiums, and is content with a recital of Dvorak Songs for her new Harmonia Mundi album. The pianist is the exemplary Roger Vignoles and the disc a joyous introduction to Dvorak at his most intimate.

Dvorak wrote 200 Lieder ranging from the downright folky to the profound, although the Biblical Songs of Opus 99 have not been included - perhaps Fink has them earmarked for later attention.

Among the 33 songs on offer, there are, it must be admitted, some inexplicably brutal omissions.

The absence of Leave me Alone, the first of the composer's Opus 82, and the song quoted in Dvorak's Cello Concerto, seems a wilful oversight when its companion pieces are all included.

Otherwise, Fink can do no wrong, setting off with the Love Songs of Opus 83 which showcase Dvorak at his most potent. In the first, Never will Love, the mezzo effortlessly transports us on glorious long-arched melodies, buoyed by harmonies that manage to be both Wagnerian and Slavic.

For the sixth, In deepest forest I stand, Vignoles creates a world of romantic horn calls and mysterious undergrowth, while Fink catches every inflection of the heroine's plight. Harmonia Mundi provides an appropriately evocative setting.

Dvorak's unique touch comes through in the lighter works, particularly the six songs of Opus 7, the so-called Songs from the Queen's Court Manuscript. Nature is ever-present in these artless Lieder, from the richly perfumed harmonies of The Rose to the bird itself chirping away in The Cuckoo.

Finn is endlessly resourceful in terms of vocal colour, as she is when she brings the full weight of her voice to the final set of Gypsy Songs, so much more assured than they were in her 1999 Matous recording with pianist Petr Jirikovsky.

Fink and Vignoles are the proverbial dream team. They proved themselves so in 2002 with their Schumann CD, and their credentials are still unimpeachable. A gem.

* Antonin Dvorak, Lieder (Harmonia Mundi HMC 901824, through Ode Records)