Notions of authenticity don’t obviously map themselves on to a piece so inherently adaptable to circumstances, and designed that way as a prototype of what became théâtre pauvre. All the same, there is a grim landmark worth marking since the influenza outbreak of 1918 19 closed borders and theatres across Europe and prompted Stravinsky and the writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz to devise an entertainment that could be staged on the fly.

Despite the slick studio-production values, Isabelle Faust and her colleagues do indeed evoke the mise en scène of performers pulling up in a dusty square late one afternoon and performing from the back of an old truck. First, however, Faust gives a tender, plangent account of the solo Élégie composed in 1944 to mark the passing of the Pro Arte Quartet’s leader, Alphonse Onnou. Her feathery bowing of the Duo concertant’s opening then suggests she has paid the closest attention to Samuel Dushkin’s pioneering version on record (with the excellent Alexander Melnikov balanced more sensitively than the composer at the piano).

This Soldier’s Tale is available in three languages, all of them recited by the French actor Dominique Horwitz. Much like the soldier’s fiddle, the English translation by Kitty Black and Michael Flanders has given sturdy service for many years now, at least since the 1954 Glyndebourne ensemble recording conducted by John Pritchard (EMI, 9/56), and Horwitz is the master of it, the rhyme, the slang and the task of differentiating between characters and narration.

The booklet details the historically appropriate nature of the instruments used alongside Faust’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Strad, even down to the restored goatskin-covered drums. The poky-sounding bassoon, the ragtime feel of the clarinet and parody-revue character of Reinhold Friedrich’s cornet à pistons are all irresistible in their own right, but the sense of authenticity really arises from the playing: the abrasive resistance to legato for the soldier’s march, for example, or the sly rubato and folksy charm of the Little Concert and dance suite for the princess abed in Part 2. The ending, too, strikes me as ideally oblique and unvarnished in the tradition of Brecht and Weill, leaving us to work out the soldier’s fate for ourselves without devilish cackles or a heavy-handed reveal. For a full, modern, English Soldier’s Tale, Horwitz and Faust and their colleagues go to the top of the pile alongside the British-music-royalty version led by the late Oliver Knussen.