Περιγραφή
Καλλιτέχνες
Here you get all the famous ballets, from Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring (all Boulez recordings), through Pulcinella (Abbado) Apollon musagète (Chailly) to Agon, the operas from The Nightingale (Boulez) to The Rake’s Progress (Gardiner) and idiosyncratically Stravinskian works like Renard (Chailly), Les Noces (Bernstein) and Mavra (Rozhdestvensky) – as well as Oedipus Rex (Philip Langridge under James Levine), and rarities like Persephone and Orpheus
Starting with the almost traditional Symphony no. 1 in E flat (Pletnev), these six CDs bear witness to Stravinsky’s incredible stylistic transformation with a rich array of neo-classical works (3 CDs) including the Symphony in C and the Symphony in 3 Movements, delightful miniatures like the two Suites for small orchestra, the concertante works for piano and violin, the jazzy Ebony Concerto and Tango, the hilarious Greeting Prelude written for Pierre Monteux’s 80th birthday – you’ve never heard “Happy Birthday to You” like this before – and the ascetic later works. Rounded off by revised versions (Suites) from Firebird and Petrushka.
Three CDs of choral music comprising famous works like the Symphony of Psalms (Gardiner) and Mass (Bernstein), but also many rarities: short Russian sacred works, Babel, Threni (Robert Craft), A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer (Robert Craft) that repay closer listening.
A fascinating sequence of songs (with Lucy Shelton and John Constable) from Stravinsky’s earliest period, many presented in the original voice and piano versions as well as later arrangements for voice and chamber ensemble (soloists like Ann Murray and John Shirley-Quirk under Pierre Boulez), ending with The Owl and the Pussy-Cat from 1966. This section also includes what may be a world-premiere recording of the short Hommage à Nadia Boulanger, written for her 70th birthday in 1947, sung by two American singers from the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Heide Stober and Ronnita Millar.
Beside original chamber works – the great Octet and Septet, for example – there are many popular works arranged from ballets that are regularly played in concert: the Suite italienne (in the cello and piano version, with Maisky and Argerich), The Soldier’s Tale Concert Suite and the Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss. Not to forget quirky items like the Duet for two bassoons, the 24-second Pour Pablo Picasso for solo clarinet (written down on a postcard) and the late Fanfare for a New Theatre for two trumpets.
The piano was essential to Stravinsky’s composition method, and he himself composed works to play in concerts. Here, alongside Maurizio Pollini’s unrivalled account of the Three Movements from “Petrushka”, we have excellent performances of neo-classical works like the Sonata and the Serenade in A by the French pianist Marie-Francoise Bucquet; the Labèque sisters and the Kontarsky brothers cover the piano duets and two-piano works admirably. AND there are three more new recordings, wonderfully rendered by the young Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olaffson – not quite world premières but very rare: Scherzo in G minor of 1902, the Valse des fleurs (piano duet) and the Souvenir d’une marche boche (1915), whose irony is wonderfully captured by the artist.
In the vaults of DG and Decca/Philips there lie some wonderful gems from the past, of considerable historical value and significance: the Violin Concerto with Dushkin and Stravinsky mentioned above, and The Soldier’s Tale with Jean Cocteau as Narrator conducted by Igor Markevitch; plus two classic accounts of early ballets from Ansermet and Monteux, conductors intimately associated with Stravinsky during his lifetime.
Finally, we couldn’t resist including last year’s sensation: Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim making sparks fly in the pian duet arrangement of The Rite of Spring |
