Piano Recital: Gothoni, Ralf - MUSSORGSKY, M.P. / JANACEK, L

Igor Stravinsky is not a composer who is usually associated with symphonic form. Five of his compositions bear that name, however, even though they have little in common. The first major work Stravinsky composed entirely in the United States, the Symphony in Three Movements seems to pick up where the Rite of Spring left off with it's rhythmic ostinatos and shock effects. It can be interpreted as the composer's response to the Second World War, which was ravaging Europe at the time of it's composition, and it's striking and triumphant conclusion appears to echo of what the composer must have felt. The Symphonies of Wind Instruments, a short, compact work, was a tribute to Stravinsky's friend and colleague Claude Debussy. Although it's kaleidoscopic formal conception disconcerted audiences at it's premiere, it is now considered to be one of Stravinsky's finest works, showing daring originality. The Symphony in C was composed on two continents during a difficult period for the composer, though this is in no way betyrayed by it's simplicity, good humour and 'classicism'. With this disc, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia and Dima Slobodeniouk present a fascinating aspect of the multifaceted output of a composer whose style was constantly evolving.

For all its traditional ties, Stravinsky's music continues to have a shockingly modern effect on many listeners even today. In his music, praise of God is formulated in tones entirely different from those expected by music lovers schooled in the romantic tradition. Stravinsky did not compose "emotional" or "expressive" religious music but sought objectivity, archaic prototypes, and traditions of timeless value, presenting these elements as if under microscopic enlargement.

Classical Music

After having won the Gramophone Award in 2014 for his recording of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos, exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet here explores the complete works for piano and orchestra of Igor Stravinsky. Once again he partners with conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, winners of the 2011 Gramophone Award – Concerto category, for their last Chandos release together. It starts with the crisp rhythms, polyphony and classical form of the expressive, weighty Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra. The Capriccio is a piece that Stravinsky composed as a repertoire alternative to his concerto; he performed it more than forty times in the first four years after its creation. The anti-tonal, twelve-tone idiom of Movements represents Stravinsky’s experiments in the use of serial techniques. Pétrouchka is a work for piano and orchestra as well, except that the piano here is not a solo instrument but rather part of the orchestral fabric. Mr. Bavouzet himself described blending in with the fortissimos of the orchestra as ‘one of the best musical experiences of my life’.

Classical Music

Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite & Danses Concertantes

Santtu conducts Stravinsky is the third album from Philharmonia Records featuring two incredible works by Igor Stravinsky - the complete Petrushka (1947 version), and the Firebird Suite (1945 version) - conducted by Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, these two works were recorded at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in 2023.

Classical Music

Classical Music

One of the foremost musicians of his generation, James Ehnes continues to dazzle audiences around the world. Here he joins the BBC Philharmonic and Sir Andrew Davis in a recording of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Written for the Polish virtuoso Samuel Dushkin, the four-movement work takes the music of Bach as its inspiration, and is built around a chord of the notes D, E, and A, which Stravinsky described as his ‘passport to the concerto’ and with which the solo violin part opens each movement. Dushkin gave the premiere, conducted by Stravinsky, in Berlin in 1932.

Apollon musagète, a ballet in two parts for string orchestra, was written in 1927-28, and demonstrates the composer’s complete rejection of the Russian folk music and idioms that had been so instrumental in his previous ballets (The Firebird, Petrushka). They are replaced by a concentration on ‘pure form’, which became known as his neo-classical style. The album is completed by his two orchestral suites – light-hearted music arranged from piano duets he had written in the 1910s – and Scherzo à la russe, a showpiece for the Paul Whiteman band that he composed in the early 1940s when newly arrived in California.

‘Delucchi has done us a great service’, noted Fanfare magazine in January 2022 after the release of his Czerny album (PCL10204) on Piano Classics. This young Italian pianist continues to go from strength to strength and to broaden his already diverse catalogue of recordings for the label – spanning Bach, Godowsky and his own music – with this new album of Stravinsky’s works for the piano. The music of Stravinsky, like Beethoven, unmistakably bears the imprint of being composed at the piano – think of the pounding chords of The Rite of Spring or for that matter the delicate right-hand traceries in a later ballet such as Orpheus. However, the composer wrote relatively little dedicated to his own instrument. There are concertante works such as the Capriccio, composed as much as anything to give him something to play, to tour with and earn valuable income from in his appearances with orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic. The solo music is more niche, but no less characteristic, every note a Stravinsky note as Elliott Carter remarked. The Cinq doigts (Five Fingers) of 1921 were composed for a recording – probably the first-ever piece of music specifically written for that purpose – though the recording itself was lost until recently. Much of Stravinsky’s piano style is influenced by the records of ragtime which were brought back for him from New York around that time, including the rippling pianola textures and cross rhythms of the Sonata from three years later. Nearly all of these pieces belong to the Stravinsky of the 1920s – a figure of coruscating brilliance who could draw all music from the past to himself and make it his own. Counterpoint, hymn and a spirit of relaxed nonchalance all pervade the Serenade of 1925, while the brief Etudes encapsulate the glittering virtuoso tradition of Liszt and his successors within a few minutes. The rarity here is a transcription of the chorale from the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, which Stravinsky expeditiously made for a magazine tribute to the memory of Debussy.

What made Mariss Jansons different from many of his colleagues? What was the key to his success? And most importantly, after all his artistic experiences, what brought about his maturity and artistic completion In addition to his own willpower and his work ethic, his extraordinary musical life was determined by many factors; they included an open-minded and supportive environment, and an orchestra of outstanding musicians. One important aspect was certainly the fact that Jansons despised any kind of routine. Even when rehearsing Beethoven's Eroica for the umpteenth time, he was always inspired anew by the work - discovering the as yet undiscovered. Routine would have prevented any change in his perspective, and hampered his enthusiasm. Moreover there was Jansons' meticulous and analytical approach to his work, which started long before he mounted the podium. He began by reading biographical information on the composer, scholarly information on the work, texts about its era and its milieu - everything he could lay his hands on. During rehearsals, he then passed on his profound knowledge and his resulting interpretive approach to the musicians. Jansons considered it his task, as early as the first rehearsal, to bring all the musicians up to the same level of knowledge. He wanted them to understand his thought processes, to recognise the explained concept behind the work and, ideally, to be able to feel the same way during their performance as he did on the podium. In the concerts, this synchronous implementation by one hundred musicians of the musical content of a work and of the concept inherent in it duly brought about that incredible pull that almost all of Janson's interpretations exert(ed) on his listeners. In addition to this collective aspect of everyone pulling together, Jansons also worked on the sound that is genuine for each composer. In this regard, for instance, he condemned accusations of kitsch where Tchaikovsky's music was concerned. He was aware of the danger of music being played too sweetly. For him, it was simply Tchaikovsky played wrongly, and was like pouring "sugar into honey". It meant a lot to Jansons to bring out the emotions in Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, of course - the emotional drama, the tragedy, the depression - but he would never force, exaggerate or emphasise them merely for the sake of effect. When the Sixth is performed as sensitively as it is by Jansons, Tchaikovsky's music acquires its true depth of meaning. "A conductor," said Mariss Jansons, "is like a director on the podium" – he analyses, stages and interprets the work. This principle, resulting from his opera conducting, was one that he transferred to the many levels of meaning in symphonic music, and here he developed a kind of directorial concept with precise approaches to interpretation. Works such as Stravinsky's Petrushka or Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique were primarily suited to this, because as programme music they sparked the visual imagination and demanded a certain musical "realism". He wanted the fairground music in Petrushka to sound shrill and out of tune, and asked the musicians to have the courage to articulate their part in just the same manner, rather than trimming it to the expectations of high culture. The contrabassoon was to play roughly, even vulgarly. Jansons was against any attempt to make the music sound pleasant here – he wanted the orchestral barrel-organ to sound out of tune, and the symphonically portrayed drunken passer-by to sound very drunk indeed. Similarly, in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, the March to the Scaffold passes us by as a musically realistic nightmare, gripping right to the end – when the head of the executed man, severed by the guillotine, falls very audibly to the ground. Jansons also worked especially intensively on modifying the sound of the strings, above all when a phrase had to assume a subtle and psychologically important function. He differentiated playing styles very precisely in individual passages - rough, melancholy, brisk, cynical, gloating, whispering, giggling or radiant – and here he particularly influenced the bow stroke, the pressure on the string and the stroke length.

In 2021 Hallé marked the 50th anniversary of Stravinsky’s death with a ground-breaking film of The Soldier’s Tale, subsequently shown on BBC Four on Remembrance Sunday 2022.

This album features specially remastered audio of the highly acclaimed soundtrack, featuring principal players of the Hallé under Music Director Sir Mark Elder.

At the height of the First World War, when Stravinsky and collaborators needed to generate funds, they devised this landmark piece of music theater, which would be suitable for touring due to its small scale. Based on Russian folk songs, the score sees Stravinsky at his unique and evocative best, in music featuring great rhythmic interest, lyrical beauty, humor, jazz, and popular dances.

Hallé principals under Music Director Sir Mark Elder deliver an acclaimed performance of great skill and colour. This modern morality tale feels as relevant today as when it was written, and Jeremy Sams’ witty and engaging translation of Ramuz’s French text provides the perfect backdrop to an ensemble of actors who brilliantly display the story’s characters.

The Symphony in C was conceived in Paris in the late 1930s, but completed in America in 1940, and is dedicated to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premièred in 1946, the Symphony in Three Movements presents us with movements that also manifest different ways of moving: a march, a slow dance, and a march-jog-race. The Greeting Prelude was written as an eightieth birthday tribute to Pierre Monteux, conductor of the premières of Pétrouchka and The Rite of Spring, and was first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on the very day: 4 April 1955. The other two pieces on the album reflect Stravinsky’s lifelong involvement with ballet. The Divertimento is an orchestral piece extracted by Stravinsky from his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss. The ballet was a homage to Tchaikovsky, based on songs and piano pieces by him, stitched together and orchestrated with Stravinskian cool. The Circus Polka was a commission from Stravinsky’s long-time collaborator George Balanchine, who had been asked by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to create a dance for elephants. The version heard here is the composer’s own orchestral version; the original was scored for circus band and organ by David Raksin, and performed by fifty elephants and fifty female dancers!

REVIEW:

It’s easy to underestimate the depth and breadth of Andrew Davis’s repertoire and indeed his sterling qualities as a conductor – his ebullience, robust sense of rhythm and razor-sharp ears. All of which are much in evidence in this generous compendium of Stravinsky.

-- Gramophone