CD REVIEW: Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
Powerful Intensity: Paavo Järvi and Cincinnati Symphony in The Rite of Spring and Nielsen's Fifth Symphony
By Clare Mackney
Birmingham Post, 10 March 2005
Telarc (CD 80615)
Former CBSO Principal Guest Conductor Paavo Järvi has something of a reputation for innovative programming, and Telarc is quite right to promote this CD on the synergy of its Stravinsky/Nielsen coupling — the similarities and contrasts are at first satisfyingly obvious, and then genuinely thought-provoking.
Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra present The Rite of Spring (1913) with cruel brilliance. The sound quality is excellent and the cutting, focused character of woodwind and brass (with almost no resonance or warmth) vividly exposes the virtuosity of Stravinsky's instrumental textures; nothing fudges the insistent rhythmic dynamism, and there is an exhilarating sense that composer and conductor are deploying the entire orchestra as a gloriously extended percussion section.
Despite the clarity, this is a sensual and emotionally telling performance. The reedy opening bassoon launches the first movement with an earthy mysticism which becomes overtly primitive with the yomping strings and horns of Harbingers. Game of Abduction and Spring Rounds are threateningly weighty, then energy builds through Games and Procession until The Sage conjures up real fear. The remorseless momentum does not mount so inexorably through the second movement, but the final Sacrificial Dance is powerfully visceral and raw.
Such a graphic account makes it difficult to believe Stravinsky's claim that his savage ballet music had no plot. Its theme (the creative force and sacrifice of spring, as reflected in his vision of ancient Russian ritual) shares a violence and duality with the portrayal of good and evil in Nielsen's 1922 Fifth Symphony (his response to World War II), but neither two-movement work has a narrative. The immediate effect of placing the two, with all their parallels, together, is to make Nielsen's orchestration seem more ponderous and less imaginative than Stravinsky's. However, Järvi's reading conveys the constructive/destructive conflict with such unflinching intensity (lower strings perhaps more darkly expressive of oppression than the martial snare drum, which Nielsen identifies as the primary representation of barbarism), that the symphony's massive, epic qualities soon assert their own authority.
Let's hope that Järvi has more exciting and enlightening combinations in the pipeline.
By Clare Mackney
Birmingham Post, 10 March 2005
Telarc (CD 80615)
Former CBSO Principal Guest Conductor Paavo Järvi has something of a reputation for innovative programming, and Telarc is quite right to promote this CD on the synergy of its Stravinsky/Nielsen coupling — the similarities and contrasts are at first satisfyingly obvious, and then genuinely thought-provoking.
Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra present The Rite of Spring (1913) with cruel brilliance. The sound quality is excellent and the cutting, focused character of woodwind and brass (with almost no resonance or warmth) vividly exposes the virtuosity of Stravinsky's instrumental textures; nothing fudges the insistent rhythmic dynamism, and there is an exhilarating sense that composer and conductor are deploying the entire orchestra as a gloriously extended percussion section.
Despite the clarity, this is a sensual and emotionally telling performance. The reedy opening bassoon launches the first movement with an earthy mysticism which becomes overtly primitive with the yomping strings and horns of Harbingers. Game of Abduction and Spring Rounds are threateningly weighty, then energy builds through Games and Procession until The Sage conjures up real fear. The remorseless momentum does not mount so inexorably through the second movement, but the final Sacrificial Dance is powerfully visceral and raw.
Such a graphic account makes it difficult to believe Stravinsky's claim that his savage ballet music had no plot. Its theme (the creative force and sacrifice of spring, as reflected in his vision of ancient Russian ritual) shares a violence and duality with the portrayal of good and evil in Nielsen's 1922 Fifth Symphony (his response to World War II), but neither two-movement work has a narrative. The immediate effect of placing the two, with all their parallels, together, is to make Nielsen's orchestration seem more ponderous and less imaginative than Stravinsky's. However, Järvi's reading conveys the constructive/destructive conflict with such unflinching intensity (lower strings perhaps more darkly expressive of oppression than the martial snare drum, which Nielsen identifies as the primary representation of barbarism), that the symphony's massive, epic qualities soon assert their own authority.
Let's hope that Järvi has more exciting and enlightening combinations in the pipeline.
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