Boulez's first recording of The Wooden Prince is warmer and marginally more relaxed than his keenly attenuated remake with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (DG, 3/93). It is an epic, surprisingly romantic conception, with billowing lower sonorities (basses and big drums are always to the fore) and a glowing blend of instrumental textures. Some of the faster items occasionally want for rhythmic elan (''The Dance of the Princess with the wooden doll'', for example, which is both lighter and crisper in the Chicago recording), but there is atmosphere aplenty and much distinguished solo woodwind work. Recorded back in 1975, it is the latest – and surely the best – of the four recordings gathered together in this stimulating set. The folk-inspired Dance Suite (1972) has a similar 'beefcake' sonic profile, and yet proves rather less compelling as a performance. The opening Moderato is properly insinuating, but the more vigorous dances (Nos. 2, 3 and 5), although fitfully exciting, lack the sort of panache and rhythmic grip that Dorati, Solti and Lehel bring to them. The spirit is there, certainly, but the accent sounds uncomfortably unidiomatic. As for the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (a 1967 recording at Walthamstow Town Hall), thoughtful preparation ensures a lean, superbly calculated Andante tranquillo, a taut Allegro, a finely honed Adagio and a vigorous Allegro molto – although the last movement alone occasionally suffers blurred contours. And I have never heard a more informative transfer of this famous recording, one that yields clearer stereophonic definition or a more vivid sense of presence.
Much of Boulez's Poeme de l'extase – an unexpected first release here in the UK – sounds as if freshly cut from the more shadowy regions of Klingsor's Magic Garden. Textures are unusually sombre and contrapuntal detail abounds (this 'Ecstasy' is more X-rayed than X-rated); and yet there is little sense of forward motion, nothing of the clear sense of direction or headlong abandon that others (Golovanov, Svetlanov, Mravinsky and – among digital contenders – Sinopoli, also with the New York Philharmonic, 6/89) have brought to the piece. Climaxes suddenly erupt (much accommodated by the Avery Fisher Hall's acoustical bloom), then collapse into relative inactivity. I longed for less weight and more animation, although the rolling lower strings at 3'38'' into the second section (track 12) sound with thundering impact and the final C major release suggests some terrible, dark place. However, there are a couple of instances where the pitch suddenly fluctuates (i. e. 9'08'' and 9'32'' into track 2), which isn't terribly helpful in a piece that, if it is to work at all, brooks no distraction. This is a strange but in many ways fascinating performance, at once solid and mercurial – piecemeal in concept, variable in execution and yet obviously the result of careful thought. As ever, Boulez refuses to rest secure among ossified traditions: his Scriabin is mystical, discursive, meandering, introspective – not at all the hot-blooded protagonist who, as prompted by other conductors, forges forwards on an unstoppable 'high'. Already, I'm tempted to listen again. R1 '9509004'