Tubin: Kratt (suite); Music for Strings etc

David Nice

Estonian Festival Orchestra/Paavo Järvi

(Alpha Classics)

By September 5, 2023

 at 3:52 pm

Our rating

5.0

Tubin

Kratt – Suite; Music for Strings; plus works by Bacewicz

and Lutosławksi

Estonian Festival Orchestra/Paavo Järvi

Alpha Classics ALPHA1006 70:20 mins

This fourth release from Paavo Järvi and his peerless

Estonian Festival Orchestra – think along the lines of

Claudio Abbado’s last ten years in Lucerne – follows the

previous two in featuring music from his native Estonia.

The first full-length native ballet score, by the always

impressive symphonist Eduard Tubin (1905-82), deserves

to be heard at least in part, and the three-movement Suite

has plenty of vibrancy. Maybe the manner is more

impressive than the matter – though Tubin had recourse

to native folk-music, not much sticks in the memory, but

the scoring is always colourful and reflects the tale of the

fireblazing goblin (Kratt) in thrall to Satan. The playing is

as vivid as we’re ever going to get, with brass so

impressive in the outer movements – the trombones

especially so in the visceral Dance of the Exorcists – and

strings ushered in by leader Florian Donderer bringing

rustic charm to the central Peasant Waltz.

An ideal framing would have been to have the orchestra’s

electrifying performance of Lutosławski’s Concerto for

Orchestra at the end, but that might have gone just

beyond the 85-minute max. The rest, instead, is string

music from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. So much from

Eastern Europe had a grey pall, and you need to be in the

mood to take the grittiness of Tubin’s Music for Strings

and the tritonal harrowing of Lutosławski’s Musique

Funèbre (the composer’s name is misspelled twice).

Grażyna Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra has it

all, though: rhythmic variety, concerto grosso solo

stretches and genuine energy – a little masterpiece and,

like everything else here, stunningly played.