The
record companies' recent flurry of interest in Robert Craft
had puzzled me. Granted, as Stravinsky's longtime assistant,
the conductor presumably represents a direct link to the composer's
ideas about his music and its interpretation. Still, the discovery
that Sony - or Columbia, as it was then - in its Stravinsky
series, had successfully passed off some Craft performances
as the composer's own was hardly reassuring, given Stravinsky's
generally stiff stick technique. A dismal concert at New York's
Kaye Playhouse, with Craft leading the Orchestra of St. Luke's
in a sort of line-diagram Mozart 29th and an aimless Schoenberg
Serenade, reinforced my negative impressions.
Well,
it's a pleasure to have those illusions shattered. Craft leads
vital, colorful performances of these two Stravinsky ballets
- performances that immediately take their place on the short-list
for these works.
Pulcinella,
based on themes attributed to Pergolesi - some of them correctly
- begins as if to confirm the bad old Craft stereotype. The
opening statement, stripped of its customary weight and grandeur,
is offhand, even hasty; the bassoon solo evinces no particular
relish; the Serenata, with its no-nonsense pacing of
the siciliana rhythm, doesn't breathe. But a bright
upward swoop leads to a perky, strongly-accented Scherzino with
woodwind colors to the fore, while the phrasing of the Andantino section
is "Classically" cool and poised. All the more extroverted
movements are ear-catching: the zippy scherzando mood
of the Allegro assai (track 5) has an infectious, undulating
swing; there's a bounding exuberance to 'Nce sta quaccuna
po' (track 9); the tarantella rhythm in track 13
comes across clearly. Elsewhere, Craft's emphasis on clarity
serves the better to draw Stravinsky's variety of colors and
textures to the fore. And, while he eschews conventional expressive
gestures, there's ample scope for nuance and shading. The oboe
solo in the Gavotta with variations (track 16) has a
real sweetness; the divided strings conjure a resplendent effect
in the finale; Diana Montague inflects Se tu m'ami movingly.
It's
Montague, in fact, who takes the vocal honors with her creamy,
plangent timbre and poised, unstrained vocal production. Mark
Beesley proffers a solid but not cavernous bass; he copes extremely
well, if not without some strain, with the demanding high tessitura
of Con queste paroline; which, according to the conductor's
note, the vocal score incorrectly prints down an octave. Tenor
Robin Leggate's performance is an enigma. He doesn't sing heavily,
but his thick vowel formations make him dominate the unisons
of Sento dire and produce some stiff phrasing elsewhere.
Strangely, in Una te fa and the Minuet, he sings with
a brighter, narrower tone that's both better focused and more
flexible - was he in such markedly different vocal condition
on the two recording days?
Like Pulcinella, The
Fairy's Kiss is based on older music. Here Stravinsky,
drawing mostly on themes from Tchaikovsky's small piano pieces,
develops them and augments them with original connective
tissue to produce what sounds like a new, authentic Tchaikovsky
ballet - although the multilayered texture about four minutes
into Scene II suggests a Tchaikovsky who knew Petrushka!
Craft doesn't try to force this romantic score into an inappropriate
neo-classical aesthetic, as his mentor was sometimes wont
to do; he allows the themes to unfold in a natural, singing
manner, without exaggerated rhetoric or loss of clarity.
The woodwind octaves near the start are eerily yearning;
a haunting Russian melancholy inhabits the minor-key melodies.
Each
of the excellent orchestras leaves a distinctive stamp on its
performance - though, given the vagaries of personnel shifts
and the time elapsed between sessions, some of the same players
may well have participated in both. The Philharmonia brings
splendid rhythmic address and sharply etched textures suit
the score's neo-classical cast, with rich, round horns and
brazen brasses offering added impact. The LSO, in turn, fleshes
out The Fairy's Kiss with an emotionally and texturally
richer sonority. The woodwind sound, rounder and more diffuse
than the Philharmonia's, perfectly suits the material. The
principal horn is superb in the high-lying phrases, the solo
string interpolations in Scene II are vibrant; the soft brass
chorales are clear and pillowy.
Naxos
indicates that "[t]hese recordings were previously released
on Koch International Classics"; I never encountered that
earlier issue, but I'm certainly glad these performances are
back, and at low Naxos prices to boot. The sound is excellent,
by the way, with a subtle ambience coloring the woodwinds in The
Fairy's Kiss, and the booklet considerately includes Italian
texts and English translations for the songs in Pulcinella.
Stephen Francis Vasta
see also reviews by Dominy
Clements and Glyn Pursglove
Diana Montague
(mezzo)
