- Leif Ove Andsnes: “Dvořák: ‘Poetic Tone Pictures’” (Sony Classical)
- A Far Cry, Shara Nova: “The Blue Hour” (Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records)
- Hilary Hahn, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Andrés Orozco-Estrada: “Eclipse” (Deutsche Grammophon)
When you think about it, it’s a wonder that Dvořák didn’t emerge as a hero of the pandemic. Perhaps we’re too conditioned to think of him as the composer of the “Slavonic Dances” or that one opera that has demonstrated you can have a Black woman play the Little Mermaid and the world won’t implode. But the composer’s larger body of work, with its balance of visceral introspection and vast natural landscapes, was ideally suited to lockdown. He was, as Jakub Hrůša points out, driven by both spiritual belief and a love of nature. And whose lockdown didn’t vacillate between those points at least a little bit?