Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale
Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale
The Gramophone Choice
Coupled with Stravinsky Octet. Pastorale. Ragtime. Concertino for 12 Instruments. Septet Berg Chamber Concerto – Adagio Schoenberg (arr Webern) Chamber Symphony No 1
Sir John Gielgud narr Tom Courtenay spkr The Soldier Ron Moody spkr The Devil Boston Symphony Chamber Players
DG Eloquence 480 3300 (139’ · ADD) Recorded 1972-78. Buy from Amazon
Some of these recordings are almost 40 years old. Acoustically, they show their age, and in other respects might seem dated: present-day recordings of The Soldier’s Tale are likely to use the ‘authorised new edition’ which gets rid of such anachronisms as the percussion crescendo at the end, which Stravinsky never sanctioned. There are nevertheless good reasons for giving these discs a hearing.
The main one is the character and precision of the instrumental playing. Performing rhythmically intricate scores without conductor taxes even the most able musicians but, whatever trials and errors there were along the way, these accounts are notable for their sheer exuberance as the players relish the challenges and seize the opportunities. Even if balances are not always ideal, and the recorded sound leaves Joseph Silverstein’s violin sounding overly dry in places, these are engaging and accomplished readings. Only in the hell-for-leather early stages of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No 1 (played in Webern’s arrangement, which reduces the original 15‑instrument texture by two thirds) does the playing sound at all effortful, and even there unbridled virtuosity soon takes over. There is also an attractive performance of what was probably Berg’s preliminary version of the Adagio from his Chamber Concerto, sounding radically different when scored for just violin, clarinet and piano rather than the eventual violin, piano and 13 winds.
The Soldier’s Tale is the most substantial work and some listeners might set it aside unheard on learning that the instrumental music was recorded in Boston more than three years before the speech segments were taped in London. But it’s a highly artificial work anyway, and the stand-off between Sir John Gielgud’s cultured (but often intensely dramatic) tones in the narration and the seat-of-the-pants Boston interpretation is immensely enjoyable. By giving the narrator a selection of the stage directions as well as the original text in the Flanders-Black translation (sadly not included in the booklet), and by encouraging Ron Moody and Tom Courtenay to stay just the right side of sheer ham, the producers did this tricky piece proud.
