This is the third Stravinsky disc from this team and, like its predecessors (9 / 93 and 1 / 94), it is more than competent without being consistently inspired. The ex-Berlin RSO, not the most obvious casting for this repertoire, play well and are naturally recorded, but the authentic Stravinskian tone comes and goes. The coupling is certainly a useful one when Stravinsky's own recordings are available only on a three-disc Sony set (8 / 92).
Agon is perennially ill-served, although Decca have a rather superior London Sinfonietta version in the vaults (Argo, 7 / 81—nla). The music-making here is just a little pale and under-inflected by comparison, with fallible woodwind tuning in the otherwise sprightly ''Double pas de quatre''. Orpheus, too, is not entirely satisfactory. Ashkenazy makes unexpectedly heavy weather of the ''Air de danse'' with an effortful solo violin bringing overtones of L'histoire du soldat rather than the Apollonian poise one might have expected. On the other hand, he discovers real drama in the ''Pas des furies'' and especially the ''Pas d'action'' and is less lugubriously expressive than Salonen in the final ''Apotheosis''. That said, Salonen's Philharmonia version is clearly preferable, even if its greater textural lucidity is in part a consequence of tactful microphone placement. The coupling is Petrushka. Ashkenazy's much more audacious programme begins with Jeu de cartes—another so-so performance in which some sections sound rushed and graceless, others just a shade too smooth and opaque for the humour to register as zestfully as it might. The third scene's ''Waltz-minuet'' is not ideally characterful, nor are the strings reliably together thereafter.
I do not want to sound too negative. These are attractive, euphonious performances which will give much pleasure so long as you don't yearn for what I see RC described as ''more angular interpretative options''. Decca provide 32 index points and helpful notes by Calum MacDonald. '