The variety here is more in the programming than in the playing. Dvorak’s Romantic Pieces open to a brand of melodic effusion that every household would know if more violinists chose the set as regular repertory. The original was scored for two violins and viola, but the violin-and-piano version is equally effective. Akiko Suwanai plays them well, and both she and Boris Berezovsky are especially successful at sustaining the long-breathed Larghetto.

The series of Janacek's operas conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras for Decca has become one of the most exciting gramophone projects of the day, with each issue a major event. The new digital recording of the last opera he composed, From the House of the Dead, is no exception: indeed, for reasons that lie beyond the excellence of performance and recording, and also lie apart from the fact that here is the first version to appear for nearly eight years, this is an historic occasion, a significant contribution to musical knowledge.

Christoph von Dohnányi’s lean and athletic Dvorák Symphony No. 6 is at the opposite pole from the warm, romantic style typified by Karel Ancerl (type Q6828 in Search Reviews). However, both approaches are valid, as Dvorák’s great symphony is at once a heartfelt work with strong classical underpinnings. The combination of Dohnányi’s energetic direction and the Cleveland Orchestra’s exactingly precise playing makes for a crisp and vibrant rendition, highlighted by the sharp-pointed timpani (well captured by Decca’s engineers).

The Prague Chamber choir was launched in 1990 and was largely encouraged by the new climate of artistic freedom which accompanied Czechoslovakia's reclaimed political independence. The repertoire of Bohemian and Moravian religious music brought together on this album includes works by two of the greatest composers of the nationalist movement during the late-19th and early 20th Centuries. The third piece is a contemporary work by a composer who witnessed first-hand his country's oppression during World War II. Collectively, these pieces by Dvorak, Janacek and Eben add up to a sustained thanksgiving-underlined by a certain pride in the enduring strengths of the Czech tradition of sacred music.

Few chamber works rise to the autobiographical level achieved in the two string quartets of Leos Janácek. The First Quartet, subtitled "Kreutzer Sonata," depicts scenes from the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy and tells the story of an adulterous wife and her resulting death at her husband's hand. Janácek himself was locked in a loveless marriage and found many parallels (without the homicide) in his life. The Second Quartet, "Intimate Letters", draws inspiration from the unrequited love affair the composer had with Kamila Stosslova and the hundreds of passionate letters he was to write to the woman half his age.