Stravinsky on dancing feet: a high-speed, hi-tech despatch that features some of the century's most engaging ballet music, brilliantly played under the energetic direction of Robert Craft, the composer's long-time assistant and interpretative collaborator. All but two of the items were taped by Stravinsky himself and are included in Sony Classical's 22-disc retrospective of his own later recordings (7/91). Of course, Craft will invariably have been present at those sessions too, but the newer versions are quite different—notably faster for a start, but also rather more incisive and lightweight, even occasionally breathless. Stravinsky favoured a plainer, more sedate beat (at least in later life), preferences that make for significant contrasts in emphases and texture, most especially in Agon and Scenes de ballet.
Under Craft, Dumbarton Oaks sounds more in line with a baroque concerto as it might be performed nowadays while the Scherzo a la russe—heard here in its original jazz-band instrumentation—can rarely have received more upbeat treatment. The Vom Himmel hoch Variations are particularly transparent and the Eight Instrumental Miniatures characterfully earmarked (the Larghetto is particularly charming). Only the Circus Polka might have benefited from relaxing into a few extra seconds, as Stravinsky's own version (of 1963—included in the 22-disc set) did. The rarities are especially valuable: a strikingly harmonized setting of The Star-spangled Banner—this is its premiere recording—and an acrostic chorale that Stravinsky worked from a 32-note birthday tribute by George Balanchine, clever in the extreme and only 24 seconds long.
I note that this volume is part of Craft's ongoing ''complete Stravinsky for Music Masters'' and I look forward to succeeding discs in the series, especially as Craft's intelligent, no-nonsense conducting inspires vigorous playing from St Luke's Orchestra and the recordings have the sort of keen-edged, immediate impact that Sony favoured for Stravinsky (or vice versa). Readers devoted to that historic enterprise can anticipate a slicker, technically superior re-enactment of an already familiar brand of interpretation. Craft's own notes are—like his performances—brisk, revealing and to the point.'