Like
Toscanini,
Karel Sejna was a contrabassist turned conductor. As a Czech conductor, he was "discovered" by
Vaclav Talich in the '20s and his career roughly paralleled
Rafael Kubelik and
Karel Ancerl. Like
Talich,
Sejna favored lyrical interpretations but he lacked his mentor's dramatic power and epic tone. And while
Sejna drove his performances harder then
Kubelik, he didn't control them as thoroughly as
Ancerl so his recordings are criticized for their excessive sweetness, their reckless exhilaration, and their careless balances. In this 1952 recording of Dvorák's Fifth Symphony,
Sejna and the Czech Philharmonic turn in a middling-to-poor performance, a performance sometimes sweet but more often simply sentimental, a performance sometimes exciting but more often simply sloppy. From
Talich through
Kubelik to
Pesek and
Belohlávek, there are many far better Czech recordings of the Fifth. In this 1953 recording of Dvorák's Slavonic Rhapsodies, however, the Czech competition -- indeed, all competition -- is limited to the undistinguished
Zdenek Kosler and the unmemorable
Bohumil Gregor, and, against their dull and dreary performances,
Sejna's mediocrity sounds pretty good. The Czech Philharmonic plays with its customary precision, power, and beauty of tone, but it played better for
Talich,
Pesek, and
Belohlávek. Supraphon's early-'50s monaural sound is dim, dark, and dismal.