Symphony No. 6 in D Major, Op. 60
Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70
Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 "From the New World"

Taking into consideration that the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony is not a professional orchestra but rather a community ensemble made up of musicians who hold down day jobs, and whose mandate is to promote classical music to the general public through benefit concerts, education and what they call "Inside Out" concerts where the audience members are seated within the rows of orchestral musicians and benefit from the ultimate Surround-Sound experience, these are highly faithful and consummate interpretations.

A slight lack of sonic homogeneity or uniformity, when compared to much larger orchestras, is sometimes apparent. And now and then some pitch issues in the string section, or a few ensemble missteps here and there within the faster movements rise to the surface, especially within the Symphony No. 9. But sometimes, as in their deeply expressive account of the Poco adagio movement of the Symphony No. 7, everything comes together nicely under conductor David Bernard's astute direction. And this brings up another point of variance. For example, Symphonies 7 and 9 were obviously recorded at different points in time, or in different venues, or by different audio engineers since No. 7 benefits from a naturally reverberant acoustic, whilst No. 9 suffers from a rather dry acoustic, made the more obvious by the fact that they follow each other on the same disc. But these are minor points of contention coming from a seasoned reviewer who has heard too many recordings of this music for his own good.

Coming back to my opening paragraph, David Bernard's accounts are true to this composer's highly distinctive musical portrayal of his homeland. Of all the Czech composers, Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) meshed native folklore elements with a Brahmsian symphonic form and structure so well that it defined his writing. As well, the presentation of all four symphonies on two discs for the price of one is a welcome added bonus.