Markevitch conducts Stravinsky
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky
Label: Classics
Magazine Review Date: 6/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 59
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 37359-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (The) Rite of Spring, '(Le) sacre du printemps' |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Stravinsky, Composer London Symphony Orchestra Robert Craft, Conductor |
| Apollon musagète |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Stravinsky, Composer London Symphony Orchestra Robert Craft, Conductor |
Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Testament
Magazine Review Date: 6/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 67
Mastering:
Stereo
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: SBT1076
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (The) Rite of Spring, '(Le) sacre du printemps' |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Igor Markevitch, Conductor Igor Stravinsky, Composer Philharmonia Orchestra |
Author: John Steane
An ingenious coupling from Robert Craft – Beauty and the Beast among Stravinsky’s ballets – even if Sir Simon Rattle was there before him.
Craft’s own accompanying notes are inspiring if righteous: “musically intelligent performances of Apollo have been exceedingly rare”, he writes, citing numerous conductorial improprieties. So how does a ‘musically intelligent’ performance of this euphony for strings sound? Fortunately, more than merely correct. Craft launches the “Prologue” with vigour and incisiveness, and keeps it going where so many performances can, in a matter of seconds, become inert. Again, Craft’s “Pas d’action”, like Rattle’s (and unlike, say, Dutoit’s or Markevitch’s), is on its toes and not its knees. More generally, Stravinsky spoke of Apollo as “a large-scale work in which contrasts of volumes replace contrasts of instrumental colours”, and Craft has taken care in balancing his forces to ensure those contrasts are realized (for example, the concertante and ripieno divisions of Apollo’s Second Variation, which here, again like Rattle’s are clearly demarcated). His forces are the LSO strings (rather more familiar with the notes than they were in 1963 for Markevitch) and able to outshine Rattle’s Birmingham strings in the opening flourishes of the “Coda” (though elsewhere honours are even). It is, too, a beautifully shaped performance, not in the least unyielding or austere, though Rattle’s copious nuances of tempo and dynamics further widen the appeal of this masterpiece of discipline, without, to my ears, offending against it.
As to The Rite of Spring, I remain unsure whether Craft’s account deserves the description ‘rigorous’ or ‘rudderless’. Expressive inflexion is judicious, and tempos are on the fast side, especially the “Introduction” to Part 2, which ignores Stravinsky’s metronome marking (as did Stravinsky, if not to the same degree). There is also a rigorously moderate range of tempo; so, for example, nothing of the order of Rattle’s or Markevitch’s daringly swift “Dance of the Earth” or Rattle’s daringly slow “Sacrificial Dance”. Ensemble in (and articulation of) fast moving material is no better than the kind the LSO should be able to produce with their eyes shut, and the ‘hands-off’ balance (a spacious Abbey Road production) works well enough without being comprehensively focused or able to counter the LSO brass in the work’s final seven minutes.
Markevitch’s 1959 stereo Rite is in a different league. This is also Abbey Road, and a model of how to balance the score (and of how to create the illusion of a wide dynamic range within more restricted parameters). Markevitch would have been quite as familiar as Craft is with every note of the piece (in 1949, he sent Stravinsky a list of mistakes he had noticed in the recently revised edition), and by 1959 he clearly knew what it needed in performance, including how to keep its shock-value alive. There are ‘improprieties’ here, such as the slowing for the “Evocation of the Ancestors” (making the most of those timpani volleys), but nothing serious. As it happens, Markevitch’s “Introduction” to Part 2 is almost as fast as Craft’s, but he is able, unlike Craft, to take in the following small marked variations of tempo, providing valuable contrasts. And in any case, the playing is so much more alive, alert and reactive, whatever the dynamic levels: listen to the incisive clarinets’ entry in the “Mystic Circles” and the frisson it imparts to the following pianissimo tremolando from the strings (from fig. 93; track 4 after 4'06'').
I could fill the rest of the page with similar highlights, and other features unique to the performance, but that would be to spoil the fun of discovery (or rediscovery – and what a transfer! – of what an original!). This is a great Rite for lots of reasons, not the least of which is the sessions were obviously electric. As a fascinating bonus, Testament also offer a 1951 mono recording of a great Rite in the making. The differences are not radical, but enough to justify the idea.'
Craft’s own accompanying notes are inspiring if righteous: “musically intelligent performances of
As to The Rite of Spring, I remain unsure whether Craft’s account deserves the description ‘rigorous’ or ‘rudderless’. Expressive inflexion is judicious, and tempos are on the fast side, especially the “Introduction” to Part 2, which ignores Stravinsky’s metronome marking (as did Stravinsky, if not to the same degree). There is also a rigorously moderate range of tempo; so, for example, nothing of the order of Rattle’s or Markevitch’s daringly swift “Dance of the Earth” or Rattle’s daringly slow “Sacrificial Dance”. Ensemble in (and articulation of) fast moving material is no better than the kind the LSO should be able to produce with their eyes shut, and the ‘hands-off’ balance (a spacious Abbey Road production) works well enough without being comprehensively focused or able to counter the LSO brass in the work’s final seven minutes.
Markevitch’s 1959 stereo Rite is in a different league. This is also Abbey Road, and a model of how to balance the score (and of how to create the illusion of a wide dynamic range within more restricted parameters). Markevitch would have been quite as familiar as Craft is with every note of the piece (in 1949, he sent Stravinsky a list of mistakes he had noticed in the recently revised edition), and by 1959 he clearly knew what it needed in performance, including how to keep its shock-value alive. There are ‘improprieties’ here, such as the slowing for the “Evocation of the Ancestors” (making the most of those timpani volleys), but nothing serious. As it happens, Markevitch’s “Introduction” to Part 2 is almost as fast as Craft’s, but he is able, unlike Craft, to take in the following small marked variations of tempo, providing valuable contrasts. And in any case, the playing is so much more alive, alert and reactive, whatever the dynamic levels: listen to the incisive clarinets’ entry in the “Mystic Circles” and the frisson it imparts to the following pianissimo tremolando from the strings (from fig. 93; track 4 after 4'06'').
I could fill the rest of the page with similar highlights, and other features unique to the performance, but that would be to spoil the fun of discovery (or rediscovery – and what a transfer! – of what an original!). This is a great Rite for lots of reasons, not the least of which is the sessions were obviously electric. As a fascinating bonus, Testament also offer a 1951 mono recording of a great Rite in the making. The differences are not radical, but enough to justify the idea.'
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring; Apollon musagète
Markevitch conducts Stravinsky
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