Chez Stravinsky

[Karl Henning]

... My trouble with Les Noces is the singing...

Ah! This makes sense. I could see the "composer's own" document unwittingly getting in the way, here.

I'd suggest the Craft recording. Among its many virtues is the agreeable timbre of the choral soprani, particularly.

[dyn]

yes, recordings of Les Noces with a high quality of singing seem hard to come by. the Naxos version is also rather subpar for instance.

Indeed; I am aware of that...

Well, the Rite is one of those works of which I love every single note, and Carmina Burana is another, since I was 8 or 9... My trouble with Les Noces is the singing. I'll comment on late Stravinsky when I get to it. It is the first time I am listening to his oeuvre in a systematic fashion.

don't get me wrong, i've always appreciated the Rite, but for whatever reason it's not desert island music—i don't find myself going back to it very often. i suppose it's much more compelling in live performance than on recording though.

[Karl Henning]

Neither here nor there, just tallying in... Le sacre is an old, sentimental favorite of mine.

Carry on : )

[petrarch]

Ah! This makes sense. I could see the "composer's own" document unwittingly getting in the way, here.

I'd suggest the Craft recording. Among its many virtues is the agreeable timbre of the choral soprani, particularly.

Thanks, I'll make a note of your recommendation.

don't get me wrong, i've always appreciated the Rite, but for whatever reason it's not desert island music—i don't find myself going back to it very often. i suppose it's much more compelling in live performance than on recording though.

Indeed it is; I attended a Boulez/LSO concert of it almost two decades ago (along with Le chant du rossignol). A truly memorable experience that cemented my unconditional love for it.

[Cato]

Concerning Les Noces: many decades ago, I had a record of it revolving on the stereo, and my mother insisted that "somebody should put those poor women out of their misery!"

I suppose the Russian chorus was particularly shrill on that record.   0:)

[Karl Henning]

My inaugural listen to Les noces was not a success. I admit it struck me as shrill then, too.

But now, I love it.

[Mirror Image]

A new Le sacred du printemps and Petrouchka coming out...yay or nay?

[asin]B009EJSTOW[/asin]

I like Gatti's conducting but I already own 41 Le sacre performances and there's no telling how many Petrouchka performances I own.

[Cato]

A recent staging of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring by the Columbus Symphony and Ballet Met Columbus sold out all performances!

This can only be considered a pop in the snout to those "death of classical music" types!   0:)

[Karl Henning]

Singing the Bogoroditse Devo (in Church Slavonic).

[jlaurson]

Whitsun Salzburg: Stravinsky for Dummies

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2013/05/whitsun-salzburg-stravinsky-for-dummies.html

The topic this year was "OPFER/SACRIFICE", with thematic and linguistic links which had to
include the two most famous 'sacrifices' in music: Bach's Musical Offering and of course
Le sacre du printemps. It was the latter I went to see—a Stravinsky triple bill of Les
noces ("The Wedding"), Sacre, and L'oiseau de feu ("The Firebird"), with Gergiev
at the helm of the Mariinsky troupe... both orchestra and ballet.

[Karl Henning]

On the centenary of the première of Le sacre, I am listening to the piece during a southern New England thunderstorm. No, I don't believe that it gets any better than this.

[Concord]

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Rite, I wrote this column, which hasd yetr to appear in the paper:

The following column will appear in the Norristown Times Herald on Sunday, June 2:


The day music changed: The 100th anniversary of 'The Rite of Spring'

By Joe Barron


One hundred years ago this week, on May 29, 1913, a riot took place in Paris. The trigger was not the price of bread, or the arms race in Europe, or the constitutional right of citizens to carry concealed weapons.


It was the premiere of a ballet.


The hissing began at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées during the first few notes of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," as the bassoon softly wailed a Russian folk melody in an unnaturally high register.

"Then, when the curtain opened, a group of knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down, the storm broke," the composer recalled almost 50 years later. "Cries of 'ta geule' (shut up) came from behind me. I left the hall in a rage."


Stravinsky's driving score and Vaslav Nijinsky's spastic choreography (which even Stravinsky didn't like) turned everything patrons thought they knew about ballet on its head. Fistfights broke out, and, as Stephen Walsh says in his biography of the composer, "if the music was heard at all, it can only have been as a component of the general uproar."


Controversy has continued for a century about just what the audience was reacting to, and what that reaction says about the relationship of the artist to his or her public. Certainly, Stravinsky meant no offense. If he had, he would have been delighted by the scandal, but, he continued in his memoir, "I have never again been that angry. The music was so familiar to me, I loved it, and I could not understand why people who had not yet heard it wanted to protest in advance."


What is equally certain is that the music, if not the dancing, became the touchstone for everything that followed. It appears at the top of everyone's list of most important works of the 20th century, at least everyone who still cares about that sort of thing. Nothing like it had ever been heard before — and this at a time when a lot of other people were writing the sort of stuff that had never been heard before — and nothing exactly like it has been heard since. Even Stravinsky himself couldn't top it.

Within 10 years, he moved on to cooler, more elegant forms of expression, and none of the music he wrote afterward, great as much of it is, is performed nearly as frequently today.


In a point of local pride, the U.S. premiere took place in 1922, when Leopold Stokowski led the Philadelphia Orchestra in a concert performance. Ever since, American musicians have spoken of their first experience with the piece as a revelation: Men as different in age and outlook as Elliott Carter and Frank Zappa have said that hearing it made them want to become composers. Kids in conservatories are still imitating it, if only unconsciously.


For me, appreciation came only gradually. I first heard the "Rite" in high school, and I did not like it for a long time. In retrospect, I understand my aversion had less to do with the music than with my recording of it. It was Stravinsky's own, a performance he conducted in his late 70s. It's not bad, but it lacks fire, and it lags badly toward the end.


Then, one glorious evening listening to the radio, I heard the recording by George Solti and the Chicago Symphony, and I said, "OK, I get it now." It remains my favorite version, and it is the one I listened to on the anniversary of the premiere.


This music has become a part of me, as it has for so many others, and friends have heard bits of it escape from me at odd moments, either as humming or as whistling. It's an embarrassment, but embarrassment is the price I'm willing to pay for having my life enriched in such a profound way.


A lot has happened in the past hundred years to make a riot over a piece of music seem quaint. Yet the undiminished vitality of "The Rite of Spring" keeps a piece of that remote world alive like nothing else, and reminds us of the power of art to throw the world off its axis. The experience of that first night must have been overwhelming. Had I been there, I would have been frightened, too.

[Karl Henning]

Joe, didn't know it was you. Welcome back!

[Concord]

Thanks, Karl, but I thought it was obvious. The Ives handle and and a bunch of pro-Carter posts -- who else would do that? Certainly not Sean.

[Karl Henning]

Oh, I admit, it was inattentive of me.

[Geo Dude]

Any recommendations for a good recording of his violin concerto?  A recording that pairs it with another of the works from his neo-classical period would be particularly nice.

[Karl Henning]

I'm not sure what its current availability is, and it is paired not with more Stravinsky but with the Shostakovich Tenth (so my suggestion is in quite serious non-compliance) . . . but if pressed, I am apt to prefer Schniederhan playing, with Ančerl at the podium.

[bhodges]

After browsing through available recordings of the Violin Concerto, I realize there are a great many I have not heard, so I would be interested in responses as well. (I have Perlman and Hahn.)

Meanwhile, I seem to have missed this lovely post below - sounds like a great evening (or whenever it occurred).

On the centenary of the première of Le sacre, I am listening to the piece during a southern New England thunderstorm. No, I don't believe that it gets any better than this.

--Bruce

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Any recommendations for a good recording of his violin concerto?  A recording that pairs it with another of the works from his neo-classical period would be particularly nice.

I like either Mullova or Chung. Neither are coupled with other Stravinsky works but seeing as these are bread-n-butter works for soloists that might be difficult.




[asin]B000024MOM[/asin] 

[asin]B0000041V4[/asin]

[Geo Dude]

Thanks for the tips.  I'm planning an order and was hoping to avoid having to pick up two discs to hear another neo-classical period work in the interest of keeping cheap and all.  I've heard Hahn's performance and like it and may try that.  Or I may try Mullova because I'm curious about the Bartok Concerto.

Sooo....I'll give in and ask:  What single disc (or double disc issue if it's reasonably priced) of Stravinsky's neo-classical era work would you folks recommend that's not paired with the concerto?