Sheer Beauty Dvorák serenades - heard by GERALD FENECH 'Performances by the Czech Nonet ... and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Neville Marriner ... are exemplary, and all the colourful harmonies and exuberant rhythms are brought out with a virtuosity that is quite unmatchable.'

Undoubtedly one of the greatest melodists of all time, Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) is to Czech music what Beethoven is to Germany's. Practically self-taught, this humble son of a butcher managed to rise singlehandedly to the heights of his art, and his legacy encapsulates every genre of the musical spectrum. Although not often performed, his two serenades seem to have drawn their substance from a Czech folklore as seductive as it is fantastic, and their magical character has a strong touch of Mendelssohnian imagination.

But apart from the well known Op 22 and Op 44, musicologist Nicholas Ingman mentions another early work composed in 1873, the Octet-Serenade in E which was to emerge later as the Serenade for Strings, Op 22...

ANTONIN DVORAK

NEVILLE MARRINER

CHAMBER MUSIC

STRING MUSIC

WIND MUSIC

CZECH REPUBLIC

PRAGUE

ST MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS

LONDON

ENGLAND