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Title: Delightful light music, performed with spirit and brilliance
Review: Of the 18 songs that comprise the song cycle Cypresses, Dvorak transcribe 12 for string quartet. The arrangement is pure beauty, even more atmospherically wistful and poetical than the originals. It is by no means very profound music, but extremely attractive and melodically highly memorable. The quartet movement, on the other hand, is quite impressive, making one regret the fact that Dvorak never worked a complete work out of it. The Waltzes and Gavotte are slighter but worth a listen, at least.And the Vlach quartet conjures up real color and spirit in this music, drawing out every shade and reflection in consistently refined performances. Perhaps the sound they procuce is, as other reviewers have observed, slightly unbalanced at times, but these are still overall very recommendable versions, especially in the fine, well-perspectived sound they get here. Overall a very welcome release.
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