Antonín Dvorák wrote two of the five overtures here (My Home and Hussite) for now-forgotten plays whose subject matter encouraged him to use traditional songs.
The other three (In Nature's Realm, Carnival, Othello) are self-standing concert pieces that can be performed individually or as a set, in which guise the composer presented them as Nature, Life and Love.
Jakub Hruša’s approach is finely detailed and at times more spacious than you might expect.
An easy-going Carnival Overture suggests that the energy in having a good time need not be as driven or forced as conductors like it to be.
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Yet Hruša can still wind up the dramatic tension in Othello. A highly engaging collection.
