Recordings such as this run the risk of prompting reams of purple prose, so I may as well spare the reader further indulgence and get straight to the point: Oliver Knussen offers us the best-played, best-recorded and most sensitively interpreted account of Le baiser de la fee that we have had so far on CD, with meticulous attention to Stravinsky’s dynamic markings and delicate instrumental pointing the like of which only Fritz Reiner achieves in his benchmark recording of the Divertimento (a sort of suite from the ballet – RCA, 9/95). Noteworthy moments include the first ‘curtain’ where, at 1'09'' into track 4, the solo flute intones its chaste melody against piano horns and string triplets. Then there’s the lilting transition to the poco meno passage at fig. 37 (1'22'' into track 6) where Knussen eases the pace for a dolce clarinet solo backed by a pianissimo bass clarinet; the boisterous but never overbearing “Village Fete” (note the swaggering horns at 3'28'' on track 8) and the subtle rubato employed for the transition to the Waltz (between tracks 8 and 9). Only Mravinsky makes as moving a statement of the “None but the weary heart” Andante non tanto on track 17 – and, in any case, his version is neither as refined nor as well recorded as Knussen’s. The end result is as pictorially fanciful as Glazunov’s ballet The Seasons and as precision-tooled as, say, Stravinsky’s own Balmont songs.
My initial impulse after hearing this performance was to suggest that Knussen immediately set to work on recording not more Stravinsky, but the whole of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet. We are in urgent need of a reading that exhibits the same delicate sensibilities and quick reflexes that Stravinsky’s subtle Tchaikovsky orchestrations (the musical ‘grid’ of Le baiser) inspired here. As it happens, Knussen’s fill-ups respond equally well to those same qualities, the mildly erotic Faun and Shepherdess sounding infinitely more seductive than it does under Stravinsky’s own baton (note the unmistakable premonition of the Firebird being pursued by Ivan Tsarevich, at 0'56'' into the third song). Soprano Lucy Shelton is more agile and vocally appealing than Stravinsky’s mezzo-soprano Mary Simmons, just as Knussen’s reading of the tripartite Ode – a quietly eventful memorial for Natalie Koussevitzky – exhibits greater freedom of line than the composer’s own 1964 recording with the same orchestra.
Which leaves me room to make merely a fleeting but, I think, important reference to Stravinsky’s 1965 Columbia Symphony Orchestra recording of Le baiser de la fee which, although full of lovely things and obviously of great historical interest, is outclassed by DG’s superior recording. Seasoned collectors may recall that Stravinsky made an even earlier (mono) Sony recording of the complete ballet with the Cleveland Orchestra, a version that surely justifies a CD reissue. In closing, I should also recall – for those who own it – David Atherton’s excellent 1992 Virgin recording with the Hong Kong Philharmonic (12/93 – nla), part of a survey of Stravinsky’s Tchaikovsky orchestrations and well worth searching out, even if, ultimately, it too must bow to this beautifully executed new version. Richard Taruskin’s notes are, as usual, comprehensively informative.'