Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles
Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles
The Gramophone Choice
Coupled with Canticum sacrum. Agon
Stella Doufexis mez Christian Elsner ten Rudolf Rosen bar South West German Radio Vocal Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden and Freiburg / Michael Gielen
Hänssler Classic CD93 226 (57’ · DDD · T) Buy from Amazon
Rarely has the late, gnomic Requiem Canticles sounded so fluent, from the extraordinary prelude (a fast, nervous pulsing with string lines crossing each other), through the taut drama of the ‘Dies irae’ to the second interlude (so reminiscent of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments) and the chiming finale, where ritual bells are enacted by celesta, glockenspiel and vibraphone, a distant recollection of Les noces. This was Stravinsky’s last major composition and although it plays for barely a quarter of an hour it seems fully to justify that dodecaphonic route that so many at the time had criticised him for taking.
The marginally more expansive and noticeably more austere Canticum sacrum marked the composer’s return to the Russian Orthodox faith and calls on the unique combination (unique to Stravinsky that is) of flute, three oboes and bassoons, four trumpets and trombones, harp, violas, basses and organ, in addition to the voices. Again Michael Gielen drives a confident course through a work that brooks no compromise and culminates in a harshly oratorical ‘Illi autem profectae’, one of the most striking episodes in all late Stravinsky.
The ballet Agon post-dates Canticum sacrum, just, and employs an even wider array of instruments, all of them used with the greatest economy and expressive force, the distinctive and rhythmically alluring interlude/prelude, a recurring motif, connecting a series of brief but terse and mostly outspoken dance movements. Agon is pure aural sculpture, angular and uncompromising (with a short-lived fugue in the finale) but, in a performance such as this that focuses its every pungent detail, makes for an alluring and stimulating listen. The recordings are both airy and admirably clear.
