Customer Reviews

Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring / Alexander Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy - Valery Gergiev / Kirov Orchestra

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the finest Rite I have ever heard. I have long listened to Robert Craft (LSO) recording, Stravinsky's own CBS recroding, and Igor Markevitch. These 3 have long been my favorites and I have heard at least a dozen other versions that didn't make the cut. Here we have a conductor who feels this score in his blood. This is an interpretation that reaches deep into the darkness of the soil and earth. It feels the roots of the trees and living things deep down. Tempi are slightly slower than normal (in no way sluggish) that gives a certain gravitas not found in, for example, Craft's otherwise fine recording (however, let me say the sheer shock value from the timapni in Craft's is something that I have never heard equalled). The cellos growl like no other, and there is a certain RAWNESS that is palpable. The opening Dance of the Adolescents sounds like a locomotive in it's deep resonance and power (as opposed to IS's own rec, which sounds like he is toning things down). The final Sacrifical Dance is special in that the drums are heard as distinct as in no other, also with a certain "tribal" primitivness that I have only heard in IS's own recording. Yet the recording is with great emotion, if that can be said of Stravinsky. Listen to the opening famous basson melody... played with a Romantic vibrato that was new to my ears.

This is a once in a generation recording of a seminal work.

Ah, Gergiev and the Kirov have finally recorded Stravinsky's "Rite"! This is a colorful, sprawling rendition, light and strong on woodwinds. It summons up images of Russian spring, flowering and bubbling. It reminds me of nothing so much as Debussy.

This is not what I expected from the acclaimed Russian conductor, but the detail and nuance are superb. The contrast with the classic 1969 recording by Boulez and Cleveland is striking. Neither is more powerful or passionate, but they employ very different qualities of passion and power. Boulez evokes images of our bloody modern world as opposed to an agrarian past. His is a hard, dark, intense vision with structural focus and clarity, and strong narrative force. If I was forced to choose one, I'd go with Boulez, but the beauty is the variety of interpretations, as Stravinsky himself emphasized, and Gergiev's is excellent!

Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy" makes a great pairing, highlighting the influence on Stravinsky of his formative milieu, and duplicating Gergiev's earlier pairing of Scriabin with Stravinsky's "Firebird."

I hadn't been a fan too much of Gergiev since a DG release of the 1945 version of Firebird and other stravinsky orchestral selections. However, this cd is a revelatory reading of both the Stravinsky and Scriabin pieces. This cd is simply unavoidable due to the hype its received over the past year or so.

Since i have been an avid NPR listener and since this was put into the PT50...i just had to check it out. So i did, and loved it. Gergiev does indeed take a very different approach which makes this cd so successful. The bass drum pounds rather than sounding muffled. The brass are not exploited as they have been in other recordings i have. Overall, a very powerful recording.

The Scriabin i think needs to be appreciated more by the other reviewers. Gergiev takes a wonderful and straightforward approach to this piece and then at the last 5 mins gives it a wollop that i do not think can be surpassed by anyone. There simply arent many recordings out there of the poem readily available so this one really i think holds its own in the market. I have 4 interpretations of this piece with Maazel, Ashkenazy and Boulez...and my favorite was the Boulez until i picked this up....now hearing the Boulez makes you want to cry. Really the Poem should get more credit, its beautiful and almost frightening toward the end...quite exalting, and definitely indicitive of its "ecstacy" like qualities.

Some [unintelligeble] years after my classical music lessons, and the vague promises to teachers and friends to keep literate thereafter, I find myself here writing a review for this mesmerizing Ossetian I've been chasing around on search engines since accidentally finding myself at a performance of his (a delightful experience, if ever there was one). What to say? First of all, I did grow up with the Dorati Rite (after all, I'm a Motown girl), which is much less jarring, but jarring appears to be the point, here. There's a good long range from ppp to fff and it sometimes come where you least expect it. Also, Valery Abisallivitch is no slave to time. Not only is the pause before the final slash during the "sacrifice" legendary, but there are several places during that last dance and in the Dance of Young Girls in the beginning when I could swear the beat comes just a hair close to syncopation. On the other hand, the opening movements of Gergiev's Rite appear so fresh, so clear, one can see and smell the trees, brooks, foliage....the live recording no doubt helps convey this.

As I, a layperson who does love classical music, try to understand what Gergiev does differently, I think it's this... he has an exuberant passion for the music, and especially for the Kirov, the family with whom he grew up, he is able to coax his musicians' passion for it in some kind of extraordinary way. Maybe especially with this Russian composer who has created something so close to the land they all call home.

Valery Gergiev is indeed one of the best conductors around now. He has a charisma that makes any orchestra soar. That being said, despite the power and exitment involved in this performance of "The Rite of Spring" I'm afraid there are major flaws that have to be mentioned.
In the "Dance of the Earth" section, the percussionist is lost as his entrances with the Tam-tam are out of place with the rest of the orchestra. This is no small mistake, since the Tam-tam is supposed to be unison with the rest of the orchestra. How this error was not discovered before release is something I wont fully understand. I don't fully agree with Gergiev's general concept of having the quieter parts louder than normal. It takes a lot away from the building of tension in a section. But overall, it's an exiting performance.
Alexander Scriabin's "The Poem of Ecstasy" fares well here. Passionate playing from the strings of the Kirov. But even here there's a major editing flaw. During the quiet last pages of the work, for some reason, a measure of the longing violins playing E into D# was accidentaly omited from this performance. This mistake is not too hard to make since it is a repitition of two other measures around it. I've made simular mistakes myself as a recording producer, but I've always corrected it by listening to the whole thing with a score prior to doing a final mix. It appears that this has not been done here.
Despite these major flaws that clearly get in the way (at least for me), this is a distinctive version of these two great works.
Valery Gergiev certanly makes his mark.

From the opening murmurs, it's clear this is a Rite with a difference. The bassoon solo is truly eerie and mysterious--so many other conductors just toss this off in a blase manner that robs it of its portent, and that makes it easy to forget how attention-getting this music was in 1913 (to say the least).

After so many Rites that sound fairly interchangeable, played with faultless technique but little interpretive insight, here's a fresh vision of what has become, let's face it, a warhorse. And Gergiev *almost* pulls it off perfectly--yes, I'm being extra-critical because I was told and had read that this CD is practically The Second Coming. Well, it *almost* is. After the best Introduction I've *ever* heard, the Dances of the Young Girls has all the barbarism and earthiness it requires, and builds to a suitably explosive climax and a taut Ritual of Abduction. And that's where the first problems creep in. I don't know if it's an engingeering flaw or what, but when the French horns first appear here, they are virtually inaudible. It's as though this were a closely-miked CD (it probably was--almost all are today) and someone forgot to turn up the mikes for the horns at that point. A few moments later they are fine. But there are other moments throughout where certain lines, particularly in the brass, are drowned out. And the trumpets and horns sometimes sound like they are struggling (which I'm sure they are at points; this is extremely difficult music of course). The while the trombones are magnificently gross in Spring Rounds, and have terrific dark bite in Ritual of the Rival Tribes, the trumpets barely make it in the climactic Procession of the Sage, and somehow things don't end with *quite* enough bite there. The various rhythmic elements aren't as clearly delineated as they could be either, and as other have pointed out, there are some outright mistakes, particularly in percussion cues. But this is far from the first recording with this problem. It also may just be a bias of mine: I prefer a rough and raw Rite to a more perfect and polished one. Monteaux on RCA is one of my other favorite CDs of this piece, and that too has a lot of snags in the performance. They don't bother me.

Yes, there is roughness here; there also are extraordinary bits of textural detail and dramatic moment that I've never heard in a Rite before. He really draws out the lento of The Kiss Of The Earth (unmarked in the CD booklet for some reason, but it's the slow quiet bit that comes just before the explosive end of the first part), lingering on the rest just before 72 in the score and dwelling on that magnificent "ppp" chord in the strings. (And they really play it ppp--the effect is spooky.) Similarly, in the Introduction to Part Two, he brings out marvelous detail in the interplay among flutes, piccolos and piccolo clarinets in a way I've never before heard. Similarly, the rhythmic pizz. strings/horn combo in Ritual Action of the Ancestors is so clear and well-voiced that this section takes on a color and dimension I've not heard before. Throughout this Rite, Gergiev takes his time and the result is great transparency. Throughout this Rite he draws out the details; slow parts are luxuriously slow, while the fast parts are never overly fast. (Only Ritual of the Rival Tribes seemed a *little* brisk to me.) Gergiev's dramatic, unscripted last pause before the final chord (delivered like Barry Bonds slamming one out of the stadium) is appropriately primal, if perhaps not sanctioned by the composer.

The Poem of Ecstasy, after such a thrilling Rite, is almost like an afterthought. I have little to compare this Poem to--just two other recordings by Inbal and Boulez, and no access to a score, so I'll leave that to someone else, as well as someone with more of an affinity for Scriabin. Suffice it to say this disc is well worth it for the Rite alone. This recording stands, along with Markevitch, Mouteaux, and Raphael Fruhbeck de Burgos (sorry, Lenny!) as one of the great Rites on record. (Avoid the composer's own recording, unless you are a Stravinskyphile or enjoy clumsy and stiff conducting.)

I was impressed that the reviewer in Gramophone said this was the best "Rite of Spring" in 40 years, since Stravinsky recorded the work. I came away agreeing with the assessment.

Both works, "The Rite of Spring" and "Poem of Ecstasy" are beautifully recorded with the complex scoring and texture of the music coming through wonderfully clear. Valery Gergiev gives careful attention to the expression the music. The Rite has the spirit that Stravinsky intended - the barbaric nature of the sacrifice. "The Poem of Ecstasy" is equally evocative. The only quip people may have is the long pause Gergiev adds at the climactic end. Many conductors add a pause to heighten the drama of the work since Scriabin did not provide this emphasis himself. It does add to the music, in my opinion.

There are many fine recordings of the Rite but this is at the top. This disc will be of interest to listeners new to both works and will make an outstanding addition to the person who already has them by other orchestras.

They saved the best for last. Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy" (Op. 54), sometimes called his Symphony No. 4, is quite different from his Piano Sonata No. 5 in F sharp major. It starts very fine and grows overwhelmingly powerful, remaining all the time highly spiritual, near to divine. It is the most direct expression of the core of the worldview of this mystic and philosopher - of Ecstasy. The Poem is a dedication and appeal to it. Scriabin's unlimited devotion to this cherished idea overcomes human imperfection and elevates the spirit to the peak of existence, to the same his beloved eternal, infinite light. A writer described the "Poem of Ecstasy" as "bath of ice, cocaine and rainbows". Some people find eroticism in it - I think it depends mostly on the listener as some people just do not know other techniques of ecstasy.

The best description of the music is the poetic text Scriabin himself wrote for "Poem of Ecstasy" - not to be heard over it, but to express the same process as the music:
...
"I am a moment illuminating eternity
I am affirmation
I am Ecstasy."
...
(the Russian full original text is at http://www.hot.ee/helleen/index.html).

The Gergiev's version of the Ecstasy is one of the best in its intensity and dynamics. I like only Svetlanov's more (and this too because of habit). Tame Boulez and clinically perfect Järvi who even didn't like this music do not reach near these. Look also at http://classicalcdreview.com/scriabin.htm

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is good also. :)

A magazine once called Valery Gergiev the most charismatic conductor working today. Even this might be an understatement. The intensity he brings to everything he conducts makes even the most exciting conductors seem tame in comparison. This current verson of the Rite Of Spring is one of the most exciting version I've ever heard, up there with Bernstein's first stereo recording with the NY Phil, and this is certainly the best digitally recorded version of the piece available. What makes it so great? Gergiev bring his patented intensity to Stravinsky's masterpiece. He manages accentuate the dissonances and the "lopsided" rhythms at the most exciting moments of the piece in order to elicit the "primitivism" that Stravinsky was trying to convey. As a result, we hear what is perhaps the most "primitive" sounding Rite available. One can really imagine a pagan ritual when listening to this version of the piece. The Brass and percussion are really the highlights here. Brass instruments have a "dirty" sound, and Gergiev really empasizes this sound in relation to the piece's primitivism. The percussion is also given it's proper place in the foreground. Too many recordings keep the percussion in the background, but in this piece the ritualistic sounds associated with percussion must be brought out, and Gergiev does just that. Here, we have the most exciting Rite available.

Previous reviewers on Amazon.uk are uniformly positive about this disc. There are far more reviews on Amazon.com but they include some ridiculously harsh and derogatory judgements about the sound, the interpretation and the playing. Too many people on Amazon get their kicks by being superior and snooty about first-rate artists, so let's dispense with their criticisms first. OK; the tam-tam is momentarily lost and out of time right at the beginning of the "Dance of the Earth" and just occasionally the horns are underlit by the engineer, but these tiny flaws pale into insignificance beside the raw energy, commitment and passion of this performance. What so many dolts call "mistakes" are the results of Gergiev's interpretation; he is no slave to the score but uses it as a springboard to deliver a thrilling, newly thought-out version of this seminal work. Thus the cross-rhythms are played with, unwritten pauses are introduced (as before the final chord) and tempi subtly distorted to create specific effects: that's what a conductor is supposed to do, I thought, as long as it is artistically justified - and here it certainly is. I ask you, is it really likely that a conductor of Gergiev's eminence, directing his own orchestra, who have played this difficult piece countless times, would mess up so badly given three days to record less than an hour's music? The sound is an engineering triumph; so much is intense and startling, and so much detail emerges within a dynamic spectrum that ranges from a true ppp to a real fff that this is an audio-buff's dream. The clarity of the sound allows us to hear that Gergiev is at times a bit vocal, as is his wont, but he's hardly the first conductor to supply a few ostinato grunts. To cap it off, we have spectacular performance of Scriabin's post-Wagnerian/Debussyian indulgence "The Poem of Ecstasy": a lush, dreamy account which flowers into a magnificent climax.

Ignore the carpers; this is a superb disc.