Conductor, Ian Whyte
Dvorak's Slavonic Rhapsodies were among the first results of the introduction Brahms had given him to the Berlin publisher, Simrock. On Brahms's recommendation, Simrock published Dvorák's 'Moravian-Duets '. They were immediately successful and Simrock asked for more pieces in the same national vein. The immediate result was the first set of eight Slavonic Dances and the three Slavonic Rhapsodies for orchestra, of which Sir Donald Tovey has aptly said that they ' show his naive genius in its most amiable light, when his mastery and inventiveness had already attained ripeness and the world had not yet told him how naive he was'.