Igor STRAVINSKY (1882–1971)
The Soldier’s Tale (1918) [55:12]
Duo Concertant (1932) [16:30]
Élégie for solo violin (1944) [5:15]
Isabelle Faust (violin) Dominique Horwitz (narrator) Lorenzo Coppola
(clarinets) Javier Zafra (bassoon) Reinhold Friedrich (cornets) Jörgen van
Rijen (trombone) Wies de Boevé (double bass) Raymond Curfs (percussion);
Alexander Melnikov (piano) (Duo Concertant)
rec. December 2019, April and July 2020, Teldex Studio, Berlin
Version in English; also available in a French version HMM902671]
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
HARMONIA MUNDI HMM992671
[76:57]
The record business has always had problems with that most strange and
stubbornly persistent of genres – the hybrid of spoken word and music. In a
one-off performance, the spoken word element is relatively trouble free,
but on disc does anyone really want to listen to such text more than once
or twice, however good the words or the actor? Yet the obvious solution, a
suite of the musical element, robs the music of its dramatic context. Few
works present this dilemma quite as powerfully as The Soldier’s Tale. Not
only does it contain lots of Stravinsky’s best music, the music is
decidedly theatrical in nature. The issue is insoluble and it is at the
heart of this issue. A bigger concern for this particular release is the
realisation of the spoken word part. To put it politely, I suspect the
French actor, Dominique Horwitz will be somewhat like marmite to a lot of
listeners. Geoff Brown, reviewing this recording in the Times clearly
loathed him. My personal reaction was much more positive. His somewhat over
the top approach seems to suit the bold primary colours of the music
making.
As for that music making, I have nothing but praise. In almost every
conceivable way this version goes to the top of the pile. The recorded
sound is vivid and full bodied, close enough to be impactful but not so
much as to lose richness. Faust’s playing, which is the thread that unites
the three works recorded here, is remarkable even by her own exalted
standards. Having not just a bona fide virtuoso but probably the greatest
living violinist play the solo part of A Soldier’s Tale takes this
performance to another level compared to many fine rival versions.
Faust’s ‘partners in crime’ are distinguished not just by their playing
abilities but also by the fact that this is a period instrument band. The
instruments used are lovingly described in the accompanying booklet. This
is no mere fad; the noises they make are a constant source of surprise and
pleasure. There is almost a paradox in the way they both blend together so
immaculately and yet have utterly distinct personalities. The same paradox
applied to the woodwind of the old Czech Philharmonic
Orchestra. The two stars are the trombone and the cornet: the latter has an
irresistible tartness when playing loud but yielding mellowness in more
lyrical music. The former has real edge without blaring loudness. Listening
to these lovely instruments I kept thinking that not all technological
progress is a good thing. But it takes musicians to bring these lovely
instruments to life and what musicians these are! Theirs is the art of
treasuring every detail but without distorting the overall flow of the
music. More than anything else they display that most essential quality in
Stravinsky’s music – energy. This is music making to tap your toes to.
Stravinsky wrote The Soldier’s Tale in France toward the end of the First
World War and after the October revolution in Russia had made an already
precarious financial situation even worse. The idea was for a theatrical
troupe with a slimmed down band providing the music. I suspect Stravinsky
was already heading toward leaner textures anyway, but clearly necessity
was the mother of invention. It is hard to underestimate just how good the
music Stravinsky provided is. Highly influential too since, in one way or
another, just about every piece of music written for small ensemble ever
since had some relation to it. It is also a miracle of economy. Stravinsky
says things in a few minutes that others take half an hour to manage.
Contrary to appearances that this is just incidental music to a piece of
narration, Stravinsky mines real depths and is in complete communion with
the strange depths of this Russian folk tale.
Faust and colleagues are in tune with these depths. The recording begins
with a small work whose existence I have never previously suspected – the
Élégie of 1944 for solo violin. I was completely bowled over by the hushed
intensity of Faust’s delivery, full of stoic resignation in the face of
great pain. This is not a filler but a piece that announces the heart of this
album.
This sense of there being more to things than meets the eye continues in
the Duo Concertant. I had always viewed this as very minor Stravinsky, yet
Faust and her partner, the always illuminating Melnikov, prove me a fool
for thinking this. Apart from the typically Stravinskian fertility of
invention they find in the earlier movements, they also produce a deeply
affecting cry of pain in the concluding Dithyrambe that caught me by
surprise. The same can be said of the plaintive music on the clarinet that
follows the soldier’s realisation that, on returning to his village, nobody
knows him because the devil has tricked him into staying away too long. In
its delicate, precise way this is music that speaks of the alienating
effect of the modern world on the human spirit.
Money troubles, albeit in less pressing form, lie behind the writing of the
Duo Concertant. Previously unenthusiastic about the sound of strings with
piano, though partly inspired by the playing of Samuel Dushkin, Stravinsky
mainly saw the work as a means of increasing interest in his music through
chamber concerts. Stravinsky had the happy knack of producing works of
genius even when what prompted their composition was simple expediency. He
also claimed inspiration from Virgil’s Georgics, which probably explains
the greater classical strictures within which the music exists. The
Dithyrambe reflects a different kind of classical influence – of the tragic
intensity found in Oedipus Rex of five years earlier.
This combination of the restrained with the wild, of the jocular with the
profound, might be said to be the theme of this collection and it captures
a side of Stravinsky’s musical personality in a seductive and persuasive
way. If you have ever thought of The Soldier’s Tale as an agreeable but
minor work (as I did) this performance will be a real eye opener. Somehow
it convinced me to think of it alongside even the big beasts like Le Sacre
du Printemps or Petrushka.
Whilst this recording cannot solve the impossible and come up with a
genuinely satisfying way of presenting spoken word and music on disc, it
amply compensates the listener with vibrant performances that beguile and
charm and move in the most entertaining manner imaginable.
David McDade
