Allegiances may vary
between Bernstein’s LSO and NYPO Stravinsky
discs – although not in the case of
the widely scorned Israel recordings
– but I’ve always worked on the more
the merrier principle. There are
differences of courses in emphases and
sharpness of attack between this 1972
Rite and the 1958 New York version.
Tempi are broadly similar but not consistently
so; sometimes Bernstein speeds up slightly
in London but the more intriguing examples
are when he is more measured, as for
instance in the Ritual of the Ancestors
when he’s half a minute slower in London.
It points to a slight blunting of his
animally magnetic and visceral approach,
I think, even though The Games of the
Rival Tribes is still convulsive and
the Sacrificial Dance still causes one
to echo Stravinsky’s famous Wow
when he heard the younger Bernstein’s
approach. The impression of recession
and a slight falling off is heightened
by the dodgy old recording set up employed
in the studio presumably in emulation
of Quadraphonic and Phase 4 experiments,
then all the rage. Whilst Stokowski
may have been the beneficiary of some
sonic spectaculars from around this
time (see Cala’s recent retrievals)
the same can’t be said of Bernstein’s
Rite. The perspectives are still wacky,
the percussion still wanders spectrally
around, the famed LSO trumpets and ’bones
seem arbitrarily deposited in the sound-stage
and things are either garish or mistily
distant. I last saw the NYPO Rite on
an Original Sleeve Bernstein box – I’d
go for that one.
But of course to confuse
things we have the famed New York Firebird
from 1957 – sounding much more natural
in perspective and with the advantage
of progressively more sympathetic remastering
over the intervening years that’s tamed
some of the brightness inherent in the
original recording. A must-have. To
bring the disc up to almost full capacity
we have his Prokofiev Scythian Suite,
a driving, purposeful, reading. The
sense of incipient tension is set immediately
in The Adoration of Veles and Ala –
etched rhythm and colour - whilst trumpets
and percussion ring out in the culminatory
Glorious Departure with commanding verve
and Gergiev-like spleen. I’d never really
pondered Prokofiev’s influence on John
Adams before – but the ghosts of The
Chairman Dances are there.
Let’s ignore the sticker’s
boastful claim that this is a "definitive
recording" and rather consider
it in the light of Bernstein’s other
recordings. Whatever you decide there’s
still plenty here to excite, alarm and
intoxicate.
Jonathan Woolf
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London Symphony Orchestra 
