Stravinsky Rite of Spring & Sym of Wind Insts
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Igor Stravinsky
Label: Decca
Magazine Review Date: 4/1985
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 414 202-2DH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (The) Rite of Spring, '(Le) sacre du printemps' |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Charles Dutoit, Conductor Igor Stravinsky, Composer Montreal Symphony Orchestra |
| Symphonies of Wind Instruments |
Igor Stravinsky, Composer
Charles Dutoit, Conductor Igor Stravinsky, Composer Montreal Symphony Orchestra |
Author: Robert Layton
There are more than a dozen LP versions of The Rite of Spring in the current Gramophone Classical Catalogue, four of which are also available on Compact Disc three of them reviewed in these pages. However, The Symphonies of wind instruments is less well served: now that the Ansermet version has disappeared from Circulation, there are two rivals on LP, Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble on Mercury (SR175057, 5/59) and Simon Rattle on Chandos (ABR1048, 9/82), and none on CD.
So far as recording quality is concerned, this new Decca release is quite outstanding and is, if anything, even more impressive than the Dorati (also on Decca), which offers on fill-up. Nor, for that matter, do its two CD companions. Those who have invested in the Ravel and Falla records from the Montreal/Dutoit partnership will expect sumptuous, finely-detailed sound with a realistic balance and plenty of presence and body—and, of course, marvellous dynamic range. They will not be disappointed here and I would expect the Compact Disc to be widely demonstrated for its sonic splendours. At the same time the performance, for the first time in my experience of these artists, is less easily summed up. The playing of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra is first rate in every department and superior to that of the three rival orchestras listed as CD comparisons. The strings are rich in sonority, the wind playing flawless and phrasing throughout is sensitive. Take almost any section of the record and play it to a visiting friend and it will excite unqualified admiration both for orchestral playing and recording. Yet, I wondered on playing it right through, why I was not so thrilled as I was by the LPs we have had in recent years from Davis and the Concertgebouw Orchestra on Philips and Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG or, it goes without saying, from Stravinsky's own recording (CBS 79244, 8/83).
Time and familiarity have to some extent robbedThe Rite of its shock value and the finesse and discipline of many virtuoso orchestras have tamed its savagery. As I said in discussing the Concertgebouw version, the sheer sense of struggle communicated by the pre-war Parisian orchestra with which Stravinsky first recorded it (Columbia LX119/23, 4/31) conveyed an authenticity of response that is no longer open to modern virtuoso orchestras for whom The Rite is an everyday event. Yet when I heard Sir Colin's record for the first time, it succeeded in doing just that! Here we were given all the wildness and freshness of this extraordinary score. Listening to the final ''Sacrificial Dance'' in this new version, for example, I felt the absence of that blazing intensity that you find in Stravinsky's 1961 record or Bernstein's New York account from the late 1950s (Philips mono ABL3268, 11/59—nla), where you feel that every member of the orchestra is fully-stretched. Again, in the opening of ''The Sacrifice'', put the Dutoit account alongside Karajan and the greater atmosphere of the latter is immediately apparent. Even in the ''Ritual of the Ancestors'' I felt that the atmosphere is not concentrated. These matters are essentially subjective and I have listened more than once (with and without a score) without, alas, modifying that initial response.
Summing up I would still recommend this new DeccaRite of Spring as the best all-round version on CD: the orchestral playing in the Dorati is not in this class, nor is that of the Israel orchestra for Bernstein, who are handicapped by too dry an acoustic and too artificial a balance (DG). On LP, however, even if the recordings are not so spectacularly good as the new Decca, my preference for the Davis or the Karajan must remain undisturbed. Readers may be puzzled to read ''1921 version'' in the titling at the head of this review. Eric Walter White goes into the changes made not long after publication and then later in 1943 (concerning some adjustments of orchestration and the barring in the ''Sacrificial Dance'') in his study, Stravinsky, the Composer and his Works (Faber: 1979, pages 217-8).
Though I don't think it would sway me so far as LP is concerned, another reason for preferring this Compact Disc over its rivals is the presence of theSymphonies of wind instruments, the work Stravinsky composed in 1920 in memory of Debussy, given a very effective and crisp performance by Charles Dutoit and the excellent wind of the Montreal orchestra. In short, then, this new version is unsurpassed as a recording and will doubtless be sought out for this reason but the performance of The Rite just falls short of the highest voltage.'
So far as recording quality is concerned, this new Decca release is quite outstanding and is, if anything, even more impressive than the Dorati (also on Decca), which offers on fill-up. Nor, for that matter, do its two CD companions. Those who have invested in the Ravel and Falla records from the Montreal/Dutoit partnership will expect sumptuous, finely-detailed sound with a realistic balance and plenty of presence and body—and, of course, marvellous dynamic range. They will not be disappointed here and I would expect the Compact Disc to be widely demonstrated for its sonic splendours. At the same time the performance, for the first time in my experience of these artists, is less easily summed up. The playing of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra is first rate in every department and superior to that of the three rival orchestras listed as CD comparisons. The strings are rich in sonority, the wind playing flawless and phrasing throughout is sensitive. Take almost any section of the record and play it to a visiting friend and it will excite unqualified admiration both for orchestral playing and recording. Yet, I wondered on playing it right through, why I was not so thrilled as I was by the LPs we have had in recent years from Davis and the Concertgebouw Orchestra on Philips and Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG or, it goes without saying, from Stravinsky's own recording (CBS 79244, 8/83).
Time and familiarity have to some extent robbed
Summing up I would still recommend this new Decca
Though I don't think it would sway me so far as LP is concerned, another reason for preferring this Compact Disc over its rivals is the presence of the
Stravinsky Rite of Spring & Sym of Wind Insts
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