The title ‘Shadow Dances’ is well chosen, since most of this music is inspired by – yet at the same time keeps its ironic distance from – the physicality of dance. As Paul Griffiths’s thoughtful booklet-essay comments, ‘It might be hard to sit still’ while listening. Unfortunately, such observations highlight what is missing from the performances. Everything here is sleek, soft-grained and civilised, for passive armchair entertainment only. The recording itself is beautifully clear and well-balanced, but that only goes to show how little bite there is in the string playing (the Concerto and the Three Pieces), how little urgency in the Concertino, and so on. Although the Suites are spruce and well co-ordinated (an admirable achievement for a conductorless ensemble), they offer little in terms of character or tension.
Coming to the Octet, I felt I had strayed into the very different neo-classical world of Nielsen’s genial Wind Quintet, composed a year earlier. Of course, it is always interesting to hear a charming, shapely, musicianly account of a piece that Stravinsky himself described as ‘a musical object’. However, if, like me, you sense aggression in that statement and in the music itself, you will not find it, or in fact any comparable characterisation, in this performance. Move over to one of the composer’s own recordings (the modern one seems only to be available as part of Sony’s 22-disc compilation), and whatever the technical shortcomings you immediately sense the sweat and sawdust of the circus and an undertone of waspish parody. When the Orpheus trombone shyly proposes a semi-vibrato in the second movement there’s a momentary sense of idiomatic initiative, but after that the performance retreats into predictability.
Thankfully the Tango, Rag-time and Scherzo a la russe all go with more of a swing, though they still sound comparatively one-dimensional. For its consistently polished playing and its valuable inclusion of such rare miscellanea as the Duet for Two Bassoons this is a disc I’m sure I shall return to; but only as a supplement to the composer’s recordings.'