Naxos’s Stravinsky-Craft
Collection continues. Recently we had
the complete Firebird and now
we have another in the series of Stravinsky
recordings he made for other companies.
Koch International originally released
London Symphony recordings and Music
Masters the Orchestra of St. Luke’s
(not the London band).
When I first started
listening to this disc I was made aware
immediately that this was not a chamber
orchestra version of the ballet. It
was most refreshing to hear a large
band of strings all playing superbly
together instead of the more usual small
chamber orchestra with all the attendant
problems.
This for me would be
sufficient reason for purchasing this
disc were it not also for the fact that
in Robert Craft, we have perhaps Stravinsky’s
ideal interpreter. The richness of the
recording also adds bloom to the somewhat
smaller-sounding Orchestra of St. Luke’s
so that the sound picture is pretty
consistent, given the smaller body of
strings.
By re-releasing other
companies’ recordings, Naxos can mix
and match as they wish to provide sensible
planning and it is unusual to have these
three ballets coupled together on the
same disc. It appears to be one of the
first, and is also very welcome for
this reason; not to mention its comprehensive
programme notes and low price. No-one
can now have the excuse for not having
these most romantic-sounding ballet
scores in one’s collection.
Apollo:
"In classical dancing I see
the triumph of studied conception over
vagueness, of the rule over the arbitrary,
of order over the haphazard. ... I see
in it the perfect expression of the
Apollonian principle." (Stravinsky)
Stravinsky chose the
subject of the ballet. The French original
of the following scenario, adapted from
the Homeric Hymn to the Delphic Apollo,
is pasted at the head of the first page
of his sketchbook:
Ilithiya arrives
at Delos. Leto was with child and,
feeling the moment of birth at hand,
threw her arms about a palm tree
and knelt on the soft grass. The
earth smiled beneath her and the
child sprang forth to the light.
... Two goddesses, Leto’s handmaidens,
washed the child with pure, limpid
water. For swaddling clothes they
gave him a white veil of fine linen
tissue, binding it with a golden
girdle. Themis brought nectar and
ambrosia.
Really this needs dancers
to interpret rather than a sound-only
recording. This should not deter you
in the least from trying this recording.
When we reach Agon,
the situation is even worse. This ballet
was devised completely by the composer,
and is plotless. Moreover, apart from
differences in orchestration, the first
and last movements are the same. The
ballet consists of a further fourteen
movements, none of which use the full
orchestral resources.
Orpheus is
somewhat better known and is based upon
the well known story of our hero. The
subject matter was chosen by Balanchine,
and he and the composer worked together
on the score and its choreography in
1947. The source material came from
Book 10 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
The ballet is written in three scenes
and is particularly lyrical in the composer’s
output.
Again, performances
and recording quality are first rate,
and this disc can be recommended very
highly.
John Phillips
see also review
by Tony Haywood
London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Craft (Apollo
and Orpheus) 
