|
|
MauritiusToday.com - Shopping Mall - Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky: Petrushka / Le Sacre du Printemps
|
List Price: $11.98
Our Price: $10.99
Your Save: $ 0.99 ( 8% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Sony
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
|
|
|
Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0074644243321
Label: Sony
Manufacturer: Sony
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: 1990-10-25
Studio: Sony
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Whatever the limitations of Stravinsky's baton technique, no one else on disc conjures the same bustling excitement at the outset of Petrouchka. Overlapping, polyrhythmic textures in Petrouchka and in Le Sacre du Printemps come off with Mozartian lucidity, Mendelssonian lightness, and, well, Stravinsky-esque rhythmic exactitude (notwithstanding a few hesitant entrances). The clarity partly stems from the composer's use of his leaner revised scores, helped by close-up, analytical mike work by CBS. There are, of course, slicker, more sonically opulent versions of these 20th century landmarks. And then there are Stravinsky's. --Jed Distler
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: The great thing here is the stark, frightening, powerful 'Le sacre'
Comment: Both of these recordings date from 1960 when the composer was 77, young enough so that there is no falling off in energy and propulsion. Le sacre was recorded first, in January, with a New York-based Columbia Sym. Orchestra. Petrushka was recorded the following month in Los Angeles with a different Columbia Sym. Orchestra -- this name always signifies a pickup group of freelancers and symhony musicians. Listening to this original Sony CD and the later remastering for their "Original Jacket" series, I hear little difference, except that Petrushka sounds brighter on top (too bright if you turn the volume up), so there's no great urgency to throw away the older version.
I am not fully convinced by Petrushka, done in the lavishly orchestrated 1911 edition, which calls for a very large orchestra. Here, the strings sound thin, especially cellos and basses. The playing is often blurry in massed tuttis. Stravinsky conducts in his usual angular, crisp way, without rubato and generally at a fast pace. As a result, he misses many opportunities for lingering rubato and dramatic contrast. This reading moves quickly from event to event, which also reflects, I think, the composer's limited baton technique. His reputation as a conductor was never high, so it's hard to know what's intentional and what isn't. Petrushka has been recorded by so many great conductors that one could prefer any number to this one (Bernstein, Abbado, and Giulini come immediately to mind for me). Still, there's lots of vigor and exhiliraiton on display here, and you may enjoy the chilly nervousness that Stravinsky cloaks the music in.
The composer's intrpretation of Le sacre comes closer to being indispensable, given the work's unqiue status among modern masterpieces. One craves to know how the composer himself felt, and to that end, this is a reading that above all is frightening in its starkness and absence of softening sentiment. Other versions are compelling; this one digs in with surgical claws. The recorded ambience is more open, the miking more distant than in Petrushka; there's no added brightness on top. (On my system Le sacre was two decibels lower in volume as well.) There is no indication if we are hearing the original or revised score, but I hear fewer differences than between the two Petrushkas.
Nor can I say why Stravinsky has suddenly become a better conductor. Is it due to the excellene of the New York musicians over the L.A. ones? However it my be, the crispness and precision here are impressive, and one gets the feeling that every spectral nuance intended by the composer came out in the performance. There have been dozens of spectacular Le sacres since 1960, but this one is recorded so well and makes such a haunting impression that it tanks as close to number one as the composer's versions ever get. In my experience, only The Firebird, The Rake's Progress, and his riveting recording of the three symphonies are this authoritative.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Must-have recording
Comment: I never understood why conductors have to make such a complicated hash of these pieces.
If you like these pieces, then you are in for a treat. Simple, clean approach with no fuss, just brilliant music that makes so much sense when played right.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Primal. Astonishing. Humbling
Comment: An erstwhile friend presented this to me because one of my two nicknames in college used to be Petrushka (just a fond, familiar, a la Russian way of saying my name). The CD sat unopened in my car for a few days until a bored passenger offered to tear off the cellophane and pop it into the CD player (replacing, I am embarrassed to confess, a CD of the Pussycat Dolls).
Well, as the notes filled my car, I found myself so totally overwhelmed that I had to sit in the parking lot for a long time after I had dropped off my friend. This is the sort of music that melts away existence; that consumes you until you are just a shiver; that picks you up and transports you to that unknown place you had dreamt about oh-so long ago; that makes your thoughts tremble with sheer astonishment at the brutal, primal genius of it all...
Ok, I gave it a valiant try. It is impossible to describe such powerful music without mouthing cliches... As a mere mortal, all I can say is: listen, and weep.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A great album except...
Comment: Some of the songs end so abruptly, that it is almost a shock to the system. Twice I checked to see if my CD player was still working. I do not know if the songs themselves where written that way or the person who put this album together did this. I keep imagining a man listening to the music with big scissors just chopping it wherever and whenever he feels like it and saying ok this looks like a good place to end a song. That is unnerving.
The music itself is simply beautiful. This is my first Stravinsky purchase and certainly not my last.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the best.
Comment: i think when the opportunity comes to hear music in exactly the way the author meant it to be heard is a rare gift. with stravinsky himself conducting, his work here is as perfect as it can ever be performed. the Rite of Spring is one of the most important works, i dare say, EVER. Listen with focus and stravinsky's genius is obvious.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
