Gramophone Magazine
November 2024
Editor's Choice

Jiří Vodička (violin), David Mareček (piano)

Dvořák: Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, Op. 57, B. 106
Dvořák: Romantic Pieces, Op. 75, B. 150
Dvořák: Sonatina in G Major, Op. 100, B. 120
Dvořák: Romance
Dvořák: Ballad
Dvořák: Nocturne
Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 2
Dvořák: Humoresque No. 7
Dvořák: Mazurek

Won't nearly an hour and three quarters of music for violin and piano by the same composer be too monotonous? No it won't because it is Dvorak... Dvorak never repeated himself; in every work, he created a different musical world. It would be hard to find another composer capable of such diversity within a single musical genre. After the earliest of the pieces, the Romance, he sent his publisher Simrock the Mazurek, which he dedicated to the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. The almost meditative Nocturne first appeared in a string quartet and then a quintet before being heard for the first time as an independent piece in arrangements including one for violin and piano. The Violin Sonata in F major, a chamber music pendant to Dvorak's Violin Concerto, clearly took inspiration from Brahms's First Violin Sonata. And there is more: the virtuosic Capriccio, the haunting Romantic Pieces, the Slavonic Dance No. 2 presented here uniquely in the composer's own arrangement, the delightful Humoresque arranged by Fritz Kreisler... and a work bearing the opus number 100, which Dvorak deliberately reserved for his Sonatina dedicated to two of his children; though simple, it is no less individual than any of the composer's other mature opuses. To sum it all up, this is a unique collection of Dvorak's complete works for violin and piano recorded by the virtuoso Jiri Vodicka, concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic, sensitively accompanied by David Marecek at the piano. The recording is enhanced by the beautiful acoustics of the Rudolfinum's Dvorak Hall in Prague.

"Their album’s greatest worth isn’t its comprehensiveness but the playing itself...I can’t see anyone bettering this any time soon." - Gramophone Magazine, November 2024