Phil sinks its teeth into the meatier side of the butcher's boy

Concerts commemorating the centenary of the death of Antonin Dvorak - the popular composer of the New World Symphony and the Slavonic Dances - are being held all around the world this year. The wistful, romantic melody from the New World's second movement is one of the best known classical pieces.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra will stage four Dvorak-related performances this season. The first, this weekend, has a crowd-pleasing line-up that includes the New World (which Dvorak dedicated to the Americas), his Cello Concerto in B Minor (featuring young American Mark Kosower), and the Carnival Overture, a popular concert opener. American Gerard Schwarz, the music director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony orchestras, will conduct.

Schwarz directed New York's Mostly Mozart Festival for two decades. He has conducted all of Mozart's operas, revived awareness of American composers such as Howard Hanson, and is no less experienced with British composers of the past century. His main interest, however, lies in the core repertoire of the 19th century - which includes Dvorak.

Schwarz calls himself a 'great Dvorak fan', and says he'd like to hear Dvorak's many lesser-known works played more often - such as the tone poem The Golden Spinning Wheel, the Czech Suite and various choral works.

Some critics dismiss the music of Dvorak, the son of a village butcher, as simple-minded. And compared with the tragic grandeur, internal struggle, sublime spirituality and exalted vision of the likes of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler, it can seem merely tuneful and effortlessly buoyant.

But Schwarz does not agree. 'Dvorak's fame was built initially on the Slavonic Dances, which was light music, and that affects his image,' he says. 'He might have been a little simple as a human being; but his music possesses the depth of all the great composers.'