This disc ushers in the 60th anniversary of the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, whose long and distinguished history includes a 16 year association (so far) with conductor Dennis Russell Davies. Under Davies’ inspired direction, the orchestra looks at Stravinsky’s orchestral music and its range of influences, from Gesualdo to Webern and shows how the great Russian composer was truly ahead of his time, anticipating the "polystylism" of contemporary music.
Featured compositions, presented in approximate reverse chronology, are the “Momentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum” (1960), the “Danses Concertantes” for chamber orchestra (1942), the Concerto in D for string orchestra (1946), and the ballet music “Apollon Musagète” (1927), created for his collaboration with choreographer Georges Ballanchine.
Igor Stravinsky: Orchestral Works
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Dennis Russell Davies
- Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum
- 1Asciugate i begli occhi02:15
- 2Ma tu, cagion di quella01:56
- 3Beltà poi che t'assenti02:36
- Danses Concertantes
- 4Marche Introduction01:57
- 5Pas d'action: Con moto03:27
- 6Thème varié: Lento01:47
- 7Variation I: Allegretto01:33
- 8Variation II: Scherzando01:22
- 9Variation III: Andantino02:15
- 10Variation IV: Tempo giusto01:13
- 11Pas de deux04:52
- 12Marche - Conclusion01:03
- Concerto in D
- 13I06:24
- 14II02:40
- 15III03:38
- Apollon musagète
- 16Premier tableau: Naissance04:40
- 17Variation d'Apollon02:38
- 18Pas d'action04:02
- 19Variation de Calliope01:26
- 20Variation de Polymnie01:21
- 21Variation Terpsicore01:37
- 22Variation d'Apollon02:19
- 23Pas de deux04:22
- 24Coda03:34
- 25Apotheose03:17
Pizzicato, Supersonic Award
The delectable appeal of old music refashioned by an expert hand is exemplified in Stravinsky’s rarely heard reworking of Gesualdo madrigals, his “Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa”, a kind of miniaturist makeover in which creator and recreator meet on equal terms. The richness of the wind writing is especially notable, though elsewhere on this superb Stravinsky collection by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies strings are more to the fore. The Bachian Concerto in D, for example, sets out to an irresistible bounce before Russell Davies draws memorably expressive lines in the central arioso. The inner calm of the ballet “Apollon Musaget” is again offset by subtle though well defined rhythmic projection, much as in the extrovert “Danses Concertantes”. Fine playing and superior production values clinch an unmissable release.
Rob Cowan, The Independent
It’s not surprising that Stravinsky was attracted by the ‘wrong-note’ harmonies of Gesualdo, but, as usual, he managed to make the three madrigals which he orchestrated in Monumentum sound like nothing but himself. What the piece doesn’t contain is the rhythmic impetus that’s so much a feature of his work. That comes in the Danses concertantes … Dennis Russell Davies leads a tightly articulated performance, with all the changes of tempo slotting neatly into place. And the clear recording allows the sharpness of the scoring to shine through, with all the solos perfectly balanced in the texture. … Apollon Musagète is the most substantial work on the disc, and the performance is characterised by impeccable balance, lithe phrasing and some effective solo playing, especially from the leader. More than that, it really dances, with lightness and elegance. … Well worth investigating.
Martin Cotton, BBC Music Magazine
The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra combines a sweet tone with superb rhythmic discipline; there’s no hint of the dryness that can creep into this kind of music.
Stephen Pettitt, Sunday Times
Stravinsky’s neoclassicism took on many guises in the decades that it dominated his compositional thinking. This collection neatly explores some of them, from the recomposed madrigals Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa to the Grecian ideals of the Ballet Apollon Musagète. In between come two works from the 1940s that put the forms and gestures of Baroque and Classical music… The performances from the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra have real rhythmic bite, particularly catching the sense of circus fun that impinges on the Danses. In the works for strings alone – the Concerto and Apollon – there is an ideal mix of Classical refinement and modernist buzz, with Stravinsky’s bouncing syncopations and melodic sleights of hand expertly pointed. The sound lends clarity to the contrapuntal workings of all four pieces.
Matthew Rye, Daily Telegraph
Strawinskys “Monumentum pro Gesualdo ad CD annum” gehört … nicht gerade zu den Lieblingsobjekten der Tonträgerindustrie – und so ist es Manfred Eicher und seinem Label ECM zu danken, dass diese Miniaturen einer Neuproduktion beigemischt sind, die einigen Hauptwerken aus Strawinskys neoklassizistischer Schaffensperiode gilt. Im Mittelpunkt steht das Ballett „Apollon musagète“ von 1927, in dem Dennis Russell Davies den Streichern des Stuttgarter Kammerorchesters eine geradezu apollinische Glanzentfaltung entlockt. ... Die klangtechnisch wohlgelungene Einspielung bietet außerdem die für Kammerorchester gesetzten „Danses concertantes“ von 1942 und das für Paul Sachers Basler Kammerorchester 1946 geschriebene „Concerto in D“ für Streicher. Die leichtfüßige, fast schwerelose Artikulation in beiden Werken vermittelt die Aufwärtsentwicklung, die das Stuttgarter Kammerorchester unter seinem amerikanischen Dirigenten genommen hat. Auch das Gesualdo-Monument überzeugt in dieser Einspielung, da Russell Davies die Fünfstimmigkeit der Madrigale in der Gegenüberstellung der Instrumentengruppen ... durch rhythmische Akzente betont. Er verzichtet darauf, harmonische Schärfungen als Eigenwert herauszustellen; Gesualdos chromatischer Stil mit den immer wieder überraschenden und funktionsharmonisch nicht erklärbaren Akkordverbindungen erscheint organisch in die Klangsprache des späten Strawinsky integriert.
Ulrich Schreiber, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Wenn auch Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa, die Danses Concertantes, das Concerto in D und das feine Ballett Apollon Musagète auch immer noch im übermächtigen Schatten des bekannten Dreigestirns Sacre, Feuervogel und Petroushka stehen, so gelingt es doch Dennis Russel Davies und dem Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, diese kleinen Orchesterwerke ins Licht zu bringen und musikalisch aufblühen zu lassen. Davies lässt ungemein viel Sorgfalt walten und bringt die Stuttgarter Musiker dazu, Stravinskys Musik wie kostbare Perlen erscheinen zu lassen. Das Orchesterspiel ist rein und filigran, Davies findet die exakte Balance zwischen rhythmischer Prägnanz, fließender Melodie und leichtfüßigem Neoklassizismus.
Pizzicato
Intellektuell souverän schweifte Igor Strawinsky durch die Musikgeschichte und transformierte wie in einer Metamorphose für ihn geeignete Funde in seine Perspektive der Moderne. Als kühl denkender Beobachter und distanzierter Bohemien komponierte er im Stil ironischer Grazie etwa die „Danses Concertantes“, und Dennis Russell Davies lässt mit dem Stuttgarter Kammerorchester diese Ballettmusik elegant swingen. In maximaler Präzision und Transparenz sind hier dennoch maskierte Gefühle erkennbar... Melodische Kuriositäten hat das Ballet „Apollon Musagète“, wo sich Phrasen aus Divertimenti und populären Genres im polyphonen Gewebe biegen und brechen. Da hat Dennis Russell Davies durch optimale Tempogestaltung dem Werk eine heitere Gestik vermittelt.
Hans-Dieter Grünefeld, Neue Musikzeitung
Dennis Russell Davies und das Stuttgarter Kammerorchester besorgen eine gut durchhörbare, von subtiler Linienführung geprägte Aufnahme.
Oliver Ford, Stereo
This disc ushers in the 60th anniversary of the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, whose long and distinguished history includes a 16 year association (so far) with Dennis Russell Davies. The productive collaboration between the resourceful American conductor and Germany’s oldest chamber orchestra led to Davies’ appointment as Chief Conductor in 1995. Dennis Russell Davies has directed the orchestra in a number of important recordings including ECM albums with music of Kancheli, Shostakovich, Vasks, Schnittke, Hindemith, Britten, Pendericki, and Mozart. The list is an index of the orchestra’s flexibility, in evidence again on their account of Stravinsky’s “Orchestral Works”. Davies, at home in all musical periods, is an apt Stravinsky interpreter. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote last year, “There can hardly be a more multi-faceted conductor at the beginning of the 21st century… Inquisitive, hard-working…. His conducting style is animated by an ideal chamber-music transparency and a fine sense of tone colour.”
In the recently published “Penguin Companion to Classical Music”, Paul Griffiths refers to Igor Stravinsky as “the least known of the great composers”. A master composer, many of whose works are self-contained worlds, and whose inspiration and ingenuity continually led to new ideas and to new ways of viewing music’s past as well as its present, Stravinsky resists glib summary. Considerations of the composer as the detached ironist or the neo-classicist – or the firebrand of the Firebird years – tell such a small part of the story. The output is vast, and it is inflected in so many different ways.
But there is a changing awareness of the composer’s central importance in the contemporary musical landscape. Stravinsky’s “borrowings” from other styles, his “hybrid” impulse, once presented a problem for adherents of the Schoenberg school. As Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich writes, “Stravinsky’s apparent indifference to musical material remained a thorn in the side of determined modernists – his predilection for using and exploiting old models and thus to put it superficially, for remoulding or retreading rather than inventing.” But in modulating from one “historical colouring” into another, Stravinsky is now seen to be ahead of his time, laying the groundwork for post-modern music and a “polystylism” reflected in the music of composers as different as Schnittke, Zimmermann and Silvestrov.
Nonetheless, few other composers have been able to make use of both the old and the new so persuasively, and references in the pieces selected here – written between 1927 and 1960 – range from Bach and the madrigals of Gesualdo to Webern. Stravinsky laughingly described his borrowings, subtle and overt, as “a rare form of kleptomania”, but the sources are always transformed. Featured compositions, presented in approximate reverse chronology, are the “Momentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum” (1960), the “Danses Concertantes” for chamber orchestra (1942), the Concerto in D for string orchestra (1946), and the ballet music “Apollon Musagète” (1927), created for his collaboration with choreographer Georges Ballanchine.
Other aspects of Stravinsky’s music are addressed in ECM’s Spring 2005 schedule. This album of orchestral music by one of the iconic figures of 20th century composition is released simultaneously with Leonidas Kavakos and Péter Nagy’s duo recital juxtaposing Stravinsky and Johann Sebastian Bach. Later in the season, ECM will release a piano recital record by Alexei Lubimov, including Stravinsky’s “Serenade”.
In the recently published “Penguin Companion to Classical Music”, Paul Griffiths refers to Igor Stravinsky as “the least known of the great composers”. A master composer, many of whose works are self-contained worlds, and whose inspiration and ingenuity continually led to new ideas and to new ways of viewing music’s past as well as its present, Stravinsky resists glib summary. Considerations of the composer as the detached ironist or the neo-classicist – or the firebrand of the Firebird years – tell such a small part of the story. The output is vast, and it is inflected in so many different ways.
But there is a changing awareness of the composer’s central importance in the contemporary musical landscape. Stravinsky’s “borrowings” from other styles, his “hybrid” impulse, once presented a problem for adherents of the Schoenberg school. As Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich writes, “Stravinsky’s apparent indifference to musical material remained a thorn in the side of determined modernists – his predilection for using and exploiting old models and thus to put it superficially, for remoulding or retreading rather than inventing.” But in modulating from one “historical colouring” into another, Stravinsky is now seen to be ahead of his time, laying the groundwork for post-modern music and a “polystylism” reflected in the music of composers as different as Schnittke, Zimmermann and Silvestrov.
Nonetheless, few other composers have been able to make use of both the old and the new so persuasively, and references in the pieces selected here – written between 1927 and 1960 – range from Bach and the madrigals of Gesualdo to Webern. Stravinsky laughingly described his borrowings, subtle and overt, as “a rare form of kleptomania”, but the sources are always transformed. Featured compositions, presented in approximate reverse chronology, are the “Momentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum” (1960), the “Danses Concertantes” for chamber orchestra (1942), the Concerto in D for string orchestra (1946), and the ballet music “Apollon Musagète” (1927), created for his collaboration with choreographer Georges Ballanchine.
Other aspects of Stravinsky’s music are addressed in ECM’s Spring 2005 schedule. This album of orchestral music by one of the iconic figures of 20th century composition is released simultaneously with Leonidas Kavakos and Péter Nagy’s duo recital juxtaposing Stravinsky and Johann Sebastian Bach. Later in the season, ECM will release a piano recital record by Alexei Lubimov, including Stravinsky’s “Serenade”.
