Dvorak: Symphony No. 8

Czech music is the supreme blend of Teutonic and Slav, all composers of Dvorak's time being trained on Wagner, as you can easily hear, and the Bohemian element piping up in the form of woodwind that almost sounds like forest-birds determined to have their say, however much faraway Vienna might dismiss the Czechs as a nation of bar-room fiddlers.

Symphony number eight in G Major is the triumph of maturity. Dvorak has acquired world fame, and seems to want to celebrate with something jollier than usual. As always, he brings in plenty of his favourite cello and oboe, but Von Karajan tends to overdo those fluting bird-whistles (if that is what they are), which drown-out the subtle underlying passages.

For me the climax is the slow waltz in the third movement, when I have seen serious listeners give way to tears at the upward sweep of the strings - just as I always feel let down by the descending scales that follow soon after it. These just sound unnatural, surely moving the wrong way.

It is the only one of his works that incorporates elements so simple and basic that they can seem childish, and some have interpreted this as a message to the three of his children who predeceased him. Indeed, behind the jollity, some of the more convoluted passages seem to be crying out "Why? Why?" in tortured bewilderment. But the mix of maturity and youth lends a special character to this work, his last symphonic effort, except for the over-played New World, and partly because it is relatively short and easy to conduct, it has enjoyed continuous popularity for well over a century.