TV REVIEW : ‘Dvorak in Prague’ Sticks to the Music

Say this for “Dvorak in Prague”: It’s a concert rather than the usual talky, self-congratulatory promo. Not a word is spoken. Nor is any on-screen clue offered as to what was being celebrated (and when) in this “Celebration,” the program’s strikingly original subtitle.

The scoop, a press release informs, is that conductor Seiji Ozawa, his Boston Symphony and a quartet of glamorous soloists were in Prague last December in conjunction with the centennial of the premiere of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony (a premiere that, by the way, took place in New York).

The program shows inconsistent faith in its audience’s ability to absorb the music of this most accessible composer without the help of arrangements to, for instance, enable violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma to do the duet bit on the “Humoresque,” originally for piano solo. And do we really need the Largo from the “New World” Symphony twice, first over some evocative shots of Prague’s monuments, then at the concert proper, which took place in the Smetana Hall before an audience including Czech President Vaclav Havel?

Several short pieces are, however, presented as written and in their entirety, including the Romance in F, poignantly delivered by Perlman; Ma playing “Silent Woods” with a stunning, seamless legato, a vibrato measurable on the Richter Scale and his patented agonized facial choreography; and Dvorak’s majestic setting of Psalm 149 with the lusty Prague Philharmonic Chorus.

Mezzo Frederica von Stade nearly steals the show with her radiant delivery of Rusalka’s “Song to the Moon,” in which Ozawa and the BSO prove the most sensitive of accompanists, and a couple of Dvorak’s Gypsy Songs, with octogenarian, Czech-born Rudolf Firkusny a dignified partner at the piano.

Kudos, too, to audio producer Thomas Frost and his engineers for creating an exceptionally handsome- sounding classical music video.