Chez Stravinsky

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Cool!  You're in for a real treat! 

Seconded. 'Orpheus' is one of my favourite Stravinsky ballets. It seems to continue where 'Apollon Musagète' left off. Marvellous.

[Ephemerid]

It seems to continue where 'Apollon Musagète' left off.

Yeah, I hear that too...

[Harry]

Apart from all the vocal compositions, Stravinsky is topdog in my collection, but I am ashamed to say that the big box of the fella, is still wrapped.......

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Apart from all the vocal compositions, Stravinsky is topdog in my collection, but I am ashamed to say that the big box of the fella, is still wrapped.......

Well, I can promise you, Harry - Stravinsky is outstanding in his own 'Orpheus'...

[karlhenning]

Letter by Robert Craft re Walsh:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EFDE133EF93BA15756C0A9609C8B63

Alas, that it should look like the Shostakovich Wars are going to suffer rivalry in the Stravinsky Wars!

Greg Sandow's review of Stephen Walsh's ''Stravinsky: The Second Exile'' (April 30) quotes Walsh to the effect that much of my work ''is riddled with bias, error, supposition and falsehood.'' I maintain that these terms apply more aptly to Walsh's work.

Although phrased in adult fashion, this is the musicological equivalent of I know you are, but what am I?  It is some little while since I read the Walsh, but I remember sober detail which underpinned the "riddled with bias" remark, which looks so harsh out of context.

It is obvious that, where Walsh is striving for an equable account of a major composer's life, if his working relation with Craft (a significant source) sours (and barring some other evidence, I must think that this would be contrary to Walsh's wishes), Craft is in a ready position to make himself the 500-lb gorilla in the gazebo.

I hope this seems more general regret that the truth is suffering because of an imperfect alliance of personalities, rather than casting any one person as a villain.

[karlhenning]

. . . in a ready position to make himself the 500-lb gorilla in the gazebo.

Viz.:

. . . why does [Walsh] continue trying to discredit someone who lived in the closest daily relationship with the composer for a quarter of a century?

Very cleverly nullifying any idea that Walsh's goal may be historical truth, but instead mere vindictiveness;  and conveniently disregarding a point which (IIRC) Craft himself once made that he was (I paraphrase) too close to the composer, for too long, to write an unclouded biography.

FWIW the impression I carried from the Walsh is that he did a very good job;  that the book carries itself like the work of someone who tried to do his best;  that it is not the final word, but that it is an important scholarly step in trying to focus on Stravinsky, rather than on Craft;  but, there arose difficulties of some personal nature.

[karlhenning]

Found a copy Postnikova and Irina Schnittke on Melodiya lp. I like esp how they let the tone blossom and the headlong pace of the third mvt. Sounds like the transcription is based on the original edition, and perhaps the early Columbia recording. Is there a DSCH expert around here who knows much about how this came to be?

I'll reply, partly speculatively, and will deny the label of "expert."  A composition student of Shostakovich's from his Moscow days, Karen Khatchaturyan, remembers Shostakovich getting hold of a copy of the Stravinsky score.  (Stravinsky was long an idol of Dmitri Dmitriyevich, Petrushka in particular was an apparent influence early on, and for years there was a photo of Igor Fyodorvich on his desk.)  The four-hands arrangement I see both as an 'exercise' whereby Shostakovich would get right into the guts of this score with which he was rightly infatuated, and — since we are talking of a monumental work for chorus and orchestra using sacred texts, in Soviet Russia — would have been practically the only way for him (and his students) to get to hear this piece resounding in actual musical space.

[Ugh!]

There are of course a number of works, and lots more arrangements of his own music and others, that Stravinsky never recorded. Craft has done some of them for MusicMasters/Koch/Naxos. '

Which pieces remain to be recorded?

Are there any recordings of Mushrooms go to war and other minor, early pieces such as Tarantella?

Some of the early pieces have also been reported as "lost", including the 1904 Cantata, and the Tarantula (1906). Have any of this material resurfaced?

[karlhenning]

Are there any recordings of Mushrooms go to war and other minor, early pieces such as Tarantella?

Yes, at least in the case of the former. Koch released a disc by Harmonie Ensemble/New York with premiere recordings of e.g. How the Mushrooms Went to War and the Petit Ramusianum Harmonique.

[Ugh!]

Yes, at least in the case of the former. Koch released a disc by Harmonie Ensemble/New York with premiere recordings of e.g. How the Mushrooms Went to War and the Petit Ramusianum Harmonique.

Interesting, have you heard it?

[karlhenning]

Yes; interesting little bits, as such marginalia must be in the case of an artist like Stravinsky.

[knight66]

This month Gramophone has a long item comparing CDs and DVDs of The Rake's Progress. It is written by David Patrick Stearns. He is a critic from The Philadelphia Enquirer. I enjoyed the piece and it provided a number of insights. I have the Gardiner version and I have not heard any other at all for many years. He writes that nothing escapes Gardiner, everything goes well, but what we have is a purely exterior presentation with the interior embodiment missing.

Not knowing other versions; does anyone here know the Gardiner, what do you think of it? He favours Chailly.

Mike

[karlhenning]

It's only relatively recently that I listened to the entirety of The Rake's Progress, Mike;  and so I only know "Igor's Own" from the Big Box.  I am curious to learn more.

[knight66]

Oh, I had been hoping you would have it at your finger tips. It's moxies until someone else turns up then.

Mike

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Here's a brand new recording of some late Igor that interests me. Anyone heard it yet?

[karlhenning]

Nowhere near too many recordings of those works have been made;  and Gielen has my confidence in this repertory.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Here's a brand new recording of some late Igor that interests me. Anyone heard it yet?

Probably the selling point for this disc is the fact that so much of this music is under-represented in the catalog. So it's almost self-recommending already.

Performance-wise I'm not in a position to say one way or another but I can 'guesstimate' at the quality based on this disc I have:



To me this disc is a winner. Gielen approaches the music with an ear for clarity, proportion, and detail. If a bit of overall warmth is sacrificed in this pursuit the musical profile is still strong and characterful. Which is simply to say there's more than one way to approach this music and Gielen succeeds in making a case for his conception.

I would expect much the same to apply to the former disc.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Nowhere near too many recordings of those works have been made;  and Gielen has my confidence in this repertory.

Agreed, which is why I just ordered it 

[karlhenning]

Seconded. 'Orpheus' is one of my favourite Stravinsky ballets. It seems to continue where 'Apollon Musagète' left off. Marvellous.

It is indeed the latest Stravinsky work to transfix my ears for an extended period.  The delicate simplicity of the harp, sustained strings, and horn . . . the forays into the more active Apollo-like passages.  Marvelous.  And, in much the same way that no one listening to L'oiseau de feu would 'predict' that the same composer would write Le sacre four years later . . . no one could have plotted a curve from Le sacre to Orpheus.

[springrite]

I just watched two DVDs of the Rite of Spring as ballet. Amazing! Well, especially the first one which is a modern version, featuring lots of nudity. The second is actually a film about the premiere of the work, with the entire ballet in it. Needless to say, I liked the new version of the dance itself better.