Wiener Symphoniker Karel Ancerl Dvorak 9 on Spotify

Arguably the best recording the Wiener Symphoniker - nope,  it’s not the better known Philharmoniker...! - ever made was the 9th symphony of Antonin Dvorak with Karl Ancerl as conductor. Recorded in the „Grosser saal” of the Vienna Musikverein, February 1958, it was one of the first issues on the Fontana label, the budget label of Philips. Where later on Epic, Philips and Mercury records were re-issued on Fontana, this is one of the few recordings that immediately was released (and re- and- re and- re- issued) on LP. Odd enough, although this is a very fine interpretation of Dvorak’s „American” symphony, it never made it officially on CD, exempt for a Universal Japan (of course, I would say ;-) version. Could not find the LP on youtube either, so I was glad to find out the bibliothèque nationale de France had transferred their vinyl copy on Spotify (earning some nice extra income from this copyright free recording, I suppose) so I can share this performance with you. If you were to sample just one movement, try the third. The drive, the individual character of the soloist passages and the sheer joy of playing is awesome there. 
As an extra, there is the „Moldau” movement from Smetana’s Ma Vlast, which was also featured on the original Fontana issue.

Hope you will enjoy this performance!

Antonin Dvorak, Symphony no 9 in e minor, "from the new world"
Bedrich Smetana, Moldau movement from Ma Vlast suite
Wiener Symphoniker, Karel Ancerl, conductor
Recorded February 8-10 1958

http://open.spotify.com/user/otterhouse/playlist/3YIfXJpXmsxZ5gTtrRVILQ
(HTTP link)

(love the "9" posted over the original "5"... ;-)