First issued on Koch,
the Craft-Stravinsky cycle reappears
here on Naxos at budget price but with
far from budget credentials. Coupling
the Greek ballets in this way makes
a deal of sense and in his two orchestras
– the LSO and the Orchestra of St Luke’s
– Craft has two bodies that prove entirely
apt, both in terms of rhythmic incision
and also of corporate sonority.
Craft proves to be
a firm leader of Apollo brooking
little extraneous sentiment though still
retaining warmth whilst evincing a sure
directional line. It ensures that contours
are shaped with decisive strength and
that the outline of the work is held
tight, though I can certainly imagine
performances that go more all-out for
an externalised sense of the poetic.
Nevertheless there’s supple rhythm in
the Prologue, a fluent and excellent
violin solo in Apollo’s Variation and
Craft’s flair for rhythmic exactitude
in the Variation of Calliope. He certainly
doesn’t spare the horses in Polymnia
and brings big, meaty, weighty strings
to bear in the Apollo Variation. Above
all though what one takes from a performance
such as this is primarily rhythmic and
that’s no better exemplified than in
the Coda, the last track before the
Apotheosis, where Craft generates a
real free, rhythmic swing.
Agon is a difficult
work successfully to bring off. Craft
relishes the challenges of instrumentation
and rhythm, and he is rightly meticulous
at bringing out, say, the trombone and
trumpet lines in the First Part’s Pas
de quatre. Generally he brings a
brisk but fluid understanding to the
score, ensuring the clarinet’s important
role is never submerged (try the coda
of Part II) and stressing the sheer
modernity of much of the sonorities
and writing. This is a decided asset
when it comes to movements such as the
Bransle Double in the third part
which Craft certainly plays at a fast
tempo, a decision repaid handsomely
in terms of idiomatic drive and clarity
of instrumental strands.
Orpheus is placed
third of the triptych here. Craft is
especially successful at evoking the
lyricism of the score and at fusing
meticulous attention to detail (balance,
dynamics) with a sure command of structure
and the spine of the ballet. He’s particularly
expressive in the second scene’s Pas
de Deux, a real highlight for me
of his performance, but equally one
can admire the way he brings out the
flute lines in the Dance of the Furies
and indeed the sympathy with which he
directs the first scene’s Air de
Danse. Warmth and clarity are held
in near ideal balance in a performance
like this.
The recorded sound
in all three performances is unimpeachable
and the notes, by Craft himself, are
commendably detailed. These are finely
chiselled and fleet performances that
bring out the rhythmic dynamism of the
three ballets, and do so without stinting
on their emotional candour.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by John
Phillips and Tony
Haywood
London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Craft (Apollo
and Orpheus) 
