Stravinsky's Apollon musagète
Stravinsky's Apollon musagète
The Gramophone Choice
Coupled with The Rite of Spring*. The Firebird – Suite. Jeu de cartes. Petrushka.
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, *Cleveland Orchestra / Riccardo Chailly
Double Decca 473 731-2DF2 (149' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
This is a great little set, coupling a ravishing Apollon musagète with a truly stunning Rite of Spring. The Petrushka is equally fine. The fact that Stravinsky’s revision of Apollon (from 1947) dispensed with half the woodwind, two of the three harps, glockenspiel and celesta from the original scoring hardly constitutes the bleaching process that a less colour-sensitive performance might have allowed. Part of the effect comes from a remarkably fine recording where clarity and tonal bloom are complementary, but Chailly must take the credit for laying all Stravinsky’s cards on the table rather than holding this or that detail to his chest. Everything tells, much as it does in the Scherzo fantastique – whether the euphonious winds and brass at 3'52", the motorised repeated notes later on or the ornamental swirlings that, in stylistic terms, dance us all the way from Rimsky’s Arabian Nights to the unmistakably Russian world of The Firebird.
Apollon musagète is something else again, and Chailly takes the lyrical line, pointing without punching and allowing his excellent strings their head. The coda is jaunty, the ‘Apothéose’ suitably mysterious, and ‘Variation d’Apollon’ features fine solo work from the orchestra’s leader, Jaap van Zweden. Viable alternatives include leaner, more ascetic readings, but Chailly balances gracefulness with tonal substance and the sound is glorious.
Additional Recommendation
Coupled with Pulcinella – Suite
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Alexander Janiczek
Linn CKD330 (54’ · DDD/DSD) Buy from Amazon
These two classic ballet scores, composed eight years apart, could hardly be more different. The Pulcinella Suite (1920) comes from the ballet suggested by Diaghilev and is based on existing music by Pergolesi and some 18th-century Italian contemporaries. Stravinsky was sceptical about the idea to start with but soon went through everything of Pergolesi he could find and ‘fell in love’. He regarded Pulcinella as ‘to some extent a satire’ but found he had to change or add very little to make the music his own.
Apollo (1928) was written for Balanchine and represents pure ballet unencumbered by a narrative, although the nine dances are related to episodes in the life of the Greek god. As in Pulcinella, Stravinsky distorts Classical and Baroque idioms to his own idiosyncratic ends in a technique of masterly restraint. Less became more.
What comes over in these new recordings by the justly lauded Chamber Orchestra of Europe is the lyricism of Apollo. Stravinsky as a melodist? It’s a claim rarely made for him but this impeccable and stylish performance radiates melodic appeal devoid of sentimentality. Overall this is a most attractive release, an imaginative coupling and an excellent recording.
