Sir
Simon Rattle has made some notable recordings of the music
of Stravinsky, whose pieces also featured strongly in his
decade-long ‘Towards the Millennium’ festival in the last
few years of his time in Birmingham. One of his earliest
recordings was a performance of
Le Sacre du Printemps with
the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and his fine
Birmingham recordings of the three great ballets and other
works have just been reissued by EMI (see
review).
It’s
good to find him returning to Stravinsky with the Berliner
Philharmoniker on this disc that usefully collects three
of the composer’s five symphonies. These three works sit
well together on disc. Not only are they all products of
Stravinsky’s neo-classical period but also there’s also
a very strong American thread linking them, which involves
three of the USA’s Big Five orchestras – and, more specifically,
the golden jubilee seasons of two of them. As is well known,
Symphony
of Psalms was commissioned, along with what turned
out to be several other twentieth-century masterpieces,
for the fiftieth anniversary season of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra (1930/31). However, unlike the other two works
on this disc, this piece did not achieve its première in
the USA. Serge Koussevitzky was ill and unable to conduct
the planned programme and instead a performance a few days
later in Brussels under Ansermet became the world première.
Symphony
in Three Movements was a New York Philharmonic commission
and they gave the first performance in 1946. Stephen Walsh
seems to imply in his booklet note that
Symphony in
C was also a New York commission but I’m not sure this
is so. In an essay on the work Michael Steinberg states
that Mrs. Mildred Bliss (co-commissioner, with her husband,
of
Dumbarton Oaks) agreed to underwrite the composition
after Stravinsky had begun work on it. Eventually, and
with her consent, he offered it to the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra for their fiftieth anniversary season and he
conducted them in its first performance in 1940.
Rattle
begins with
Symphony in Three Movements. The first
movement starts off powerfully but fairly soon the music
is characterised above all by driving, irregular rhythms.
Stravinsky’s scoring is often quite dense but Rattle achieves
consistent clarity and, as you might expect from him, the
rhythms are never slack. The second movement is quite gentle
by comparison. In the first movement a piano, with its
percussive qualities, had played an important role. Here
a harp forms an essential ingredient in the scoring. Unlikely
as it may seem, Stravinsky originally conceived this music
for a score he proposed to compose for the 1943 film
Song
of Bernadette, a project that he never realised. Much
of the music is relaxed but there’s still quite often pungency
in the wind writing (for example between 3:29 and 4:10).
In the finale Stravinsky reverts to the blocks of sound
and acerbic motor rhythms that characterised much of the
first movement. In this section he deploys both piano and
harp, the latter shorn of any gentility. The explosive
final pages in particular are potently delivered by Rattle
and his orchestra.
In
Symphony
of Psalms Rattle seems to relish the spare, pungent
orchestral scoring. Once again he’s acutely alive to
rhythms. The choir, trained by Simon Halsey, is excellent
and contributes excitingly, not least to a tremendously
powerful climax in the second movement. The finale, which
is the most extended movement, sets Psalm 150, a paean
of praise. However, Stravinsky begins the movement surprisingly
quietly. The main allegro (from 1:59) crackles excitingly.
In his notes Stephen Walsh perceptively relates this
section to the words in the Apocrypha: “Divine grace
is dancing … ye who dance not know not what we know.” But
it’s also relevant to recall that Stravinsky himself
said that the allegro was inspired by the image of the
prophet Elijah going up to heaven in his fiery chariot.
The biting playing of the Berliners and the precision
of the choir mean that this whole passage is articulated
very well indeed. Given the celebratory text of the psalm
one might expect the music to continue in this jubilant
vein right through to the end. But Stravinsky is never
predictable and as early as 5:25 - in a movement lasting
12:32 in this performance - he eases right back and,
as Walsh says, “the dance slows to a ritual sway”, which
lasts right through to the end. In Michael Steinberg’s
evocative description “the music settles into a different,
deeply inward kind of ecstasy, whose musical expression
here is all timeless, motionless quiet.” Rattle and his
forces are just as successful at realising Stravinsky’s
vision here, as they were when the music was all ablaze
and brimming with life.
Finally
we hear
Symphony in C. The composition of this work
occupied Stravinsky between 1938 and 1940. During some
of this time he was distracted by the serious illness of
his first wife, Catherine and of their two daughters. His
wife and one of his daughters succumbed to their illnesses
and, if this were not enough, Stravinsky himself endured
a period of ill health. But none of this is apparent to
the listener to
Symphony in C. Amazingly – and perhaps
as a conscious reaction to and release from his troubles – Stravinsky
produced a predominantly positive work, very firmly in
the neo-classical style, albeit in Stephen Walsh’s memorable
phrase, “the key of C major is a highly ambiguous beast
which seems to be forever locking horns with E minor.”
The
work is much more conventionally scored than the other
two works on the disc. Rattle brings energy and an airy
feeling to his performance and, yet again, he makes sure
the music is rhythmically alive. It’s interesting that
Michael Steinberg, in his aforementioned essay on the symphony,
states that scores of some Haydn symphonies were often
to be found on Stravinsky’s desk while he was writing this
particular work. That seems to be quite relevant because
I’ve always thought that Haydn is a composer that Rattle
conducts well, though I know this isn’t a view that’s universally
shared.
In
the second movement, much of which is like an Italianate
song, there’s some fine work by the principal oboe player
and the music is played with delicacy and no little finesse
by the Berliners. Having said that, they also bring appropriate
energy to the more propulsive section (2:58 to 4:29). I
like the playful zest in the third movement. The finale
opens somewhat mysteriously and Rattle catches the mood
well. When the pace of the music picks up (1:31) the strings
dig in vigorously and some listeners may feel they’re recorded
a bit too closely. From here on the reading buzzes with
vitality until, in a masterstroke, Stravinsky slows the
music right down for a tranquil ending. In this performance
the music glows gently in this section. The quiet wind
chords (from 6:52) seem to recall the ‘Laudate’ finale
of
Symphony of Psalms, the memory made the sharper
by the juxtaposition of the two works on the same disc.
Sometimes I find Stravinsky’s music a bit forbidding but
I enjoyed this account of
Symphony in C very much.
These
are recordings taken from concerts in the Philharmonie.
One can’t know how much patching and editing has gone on
but the feel of a live performance comes across, though
the audience is commendably silent. I’ve read comments
in various places to the effect that the recorded sound
in some of Rattle’s previous live Berlin recordings has
been too close. I must say that in those recordings that
I’ve heard I’ve not experienced any problems with the recorded
sound, nor have I done on this occasion, with the possible
exception of the point I made in the preceding paragraph.
This is a very successful
collection of three major orchestral works by Stravinsky.
There’s considerable logic in having these three works
on the same disc and as the performances are uniformly
good this makes a desirable package.
John
Quinn
see also review by Kevin Sutton
Rundfunkchor
Berlin (Psalms)
