ANTONÍN DVORÁK Symphony No.6 | American Suite op.98b Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, James Gaffigan

While Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony is clearly inspired by the Symphony no.2 of his friend and champion Johannes Brahms, its middle movements persuasively reinterpret the Slavonic tradition. The Suite op.98, commissioned from Dvořák when he was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, is an exotic patchwork of Amerindian and Afro-American music – with a pronounced Bohemian accent. It is only much more recently that it acquired the nickname ‘American’.