The Eight Symphony by Dvorak is one of the glories of the romantic era. It is crammed full of memorable tunes and many consider it to be the composer’s finest symphony. It was written in 1889 and draws its inspiration from the Bohemian folk music that Dvorak loved. The essentially cheery nature of the first movement is tempered with passages in the minor key, and this is followed by a sublimely beautiful slow movement. The third movement is mainly in the form of a haunting, melancholy waltz, and the finale, with its blazing trumpet fanfare, is thrillingly dramatic, with a masterly build-up of tension towards the coda. The Golden Spinning Wheel is one of the composer’s finest and most dramatic tone poems based on the often macabre ballads by Erben; its almost thirty minutes are full of character, incident and imaginative orchestral colour. Gianandrea Noseda brings out all the richness of these scores, and the virtuoso BBC Philharmonic can now be heard in top-quality loss-less sound.
