Consider Stravinsky’s Russian phase, and the three great ballets automatically spring to mind; Les noces (“The wedding”), however, tends to take a back seat. But when Stravinsky first played Les noces to Diaghilev in 1915, the latter apparently wept and said it was Stravinsky’s most beautiful and purely Russian creation. So, first of all, bravo to Decca and Ashkenazy for coupling The Rite and Les noces – the first time they have been issued together on disc.
Although the soloists in this new Les noces appear from their names to be Russian or Eastern European, do not expect the raw vocal authenticity of the Pokrovsky Ensemble (doubtless Stravinsky himself would never have expected that), or even quite the character of Ancerl’s participants. And don’t expect the vivid immediacy and presence of those famous recordings of the past from Ancerl, Bernstein and the composer. This is an expertly balanced and decently set back concert presentation of a well-drilled ensemble performance, with subtleties of texture and dynamics (and their consequent expressive rewards) that completely pass Pokrovsky by (and to a lesser extent, Stravinsky and Ancerl). The choir’s pitching of some of the semiquavers can be approximate (nothing unusual!) but their accents are especially well observed. The catalogue certainly has room for a Les noces such as this.
Without a doubt, space will also be found for this Rite in the audio demonstration rooms (the ones where you buy equipment, and the ones where you sit at home and listen to it). What worries me about a recording with such a huge dynamic range as this is that the quieter sections do not relate to the louder ones in the way that they would in the concert-hall. I might indulge in a little lay speculation and suggest that spot-miking and capturing something approaching a valid concert-hall range needs to be handled with greater care than it is here. Whatever the case, the tonal paleness of the “Mystic Circles” and then the vibrant, awesome (and, it must be said, wonderfully clean) walloping of the ensuing drums leading to the “Glorification” might have come from different recordings – I would love to know to what extent Ashkenazy was compliant in this particular contrast (the drums are only marked single forte). The fact remains that for all this account’s percussive thrills, and, one might add, those of the horns which are reproduced with customary Decca presence (listen to their snarling in the “Ritual Action of the Ancestors”), Ashkenazy, on the evidence of what has emerged from my loudspeakers, seems less interested in the total sound of this extraordinary score than, from among modern rivals, Rattle obviously is.'