Customer Reviews

Stravinsky / Ramuz: The Soldier's Tale, Dumbarton Oaks Concerto / Ward, Keeble, Soames, et al

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A lot of people associate the name Igor Stravinsky with "The Rite of Spring," and maybe "Petrushka" or "The Firebird." Not that there's anything wrong with this. Stravinsky's early ballets are some of his finest work, particularly "Le Sacre," which is arguably the greatest twentieth century piece ever penned, by anybody. However, there is a lot of great music that Stravinsky wrote besides these three works. Two of them appear on this recording, "The Soldier's Tale (L'Histoire du Soldat)" and "Concerto in E-flat (Dumbarton Oaks)". "The Soldier's Tale" is a marvelous work, telling a Faust-like story about an unfortunate soldier who gets a little bit too close to "the dark side," I guess you could say. There are several recordings of this piece, and while this is certainly not the best known, it is a wonderful one. The use of three separate actors really enhances the performance and makes it very easy to follow. My one complaint is that the bassoon could be a bit higher in the mix, but that's a small concern. "Dumbarton Oaks" is a masterpiece too, though on a smaller scale. Lasting only about 15 minutes (not bad for three movements), it's clearly inspired by the work of a much earlier musical genius, ie, Bach. It's a light, energetic piece that is as masterful as it is accessible. The performance is flawless and really captures the spirit that I'm sure Stravinsky intended. All in all, this is a wonderful release, and at the ... price, you really can't go wrong with it.

This performance is wonderfull. The narration on most others is done with an artificial "poetic" drone, whereas this is done in a natural tone of voice. The instruments are played excellently. The price definitely makes this the best value.

It's quite safe to say to every enthusiast for Stravinsky that the musical side of this production is excellent, supported by faultless recordings from 1995 and 1996, and the disc is an excellent bargain as well, as you would expect from Naxos. The style adopted for this English version of The Soldier's Tale is completely consistent on its own terms too. The soldier himself sounds innocent and green, as of course he should do. He also sounds rather suburban, Purley rather than Peckham, whereas I would have expected him to sound more proletarian. However, if he had sounded that way he would have been out of keeping with the text he is given. This English translation is by two authors in collaboration, the one whose name I know being Michael Flanders. Without any disrespect to Flanders's memory as an entertainer, I can't really feel that his idiom fits this quirky little variant on the Faust legend. I certainly agree that rhyming verse is the right way to do it, as that helps to keep the listener's focus. (The text is not printed in the liner, and I don't believe you will need it there.) What I find all the same is that the rhymes here are dreadfully flat-footed. The English language is not very rich in rhymes, as Housman said by way of noting Swinburne's extraordinary ingenuity in overcoming this limitation. However I really yearn for better rhymes than we get here, and indeed for an English diction generally that is not so dated and 1950's insipid. In this year of grace (or disgrace) 2009 the theme of money being the devil's tool of corruption and damnation has a very strong resonance, and I would love to see and hear a new English text for The Soldier's Tale that is more in keeping with our own era and culture.

Obviously I don't expect everybody to share this viewpoint, and I gladly concede that the spoken side of the performance at least has integrity and consistency from its own standpoint. Where I hope I will get more agreement is in my opinion of the instrumental playing, which I would call excellent without qualification. There are seven instrumentalists, all rightly identified by name, in The Soldier, and they play Stravinsky as I love to hear him played - the tone clear, the texture clean and linear, the rhythm crisp. The purely instrumental sections, mainly the marches and the various dances but with a solemn contrast provided by the trumpet and trombone in the two chorales, are just right to my ears, and well recorded too, as they need to be. The English version of the liner note appears to be by Keith Anderson if I have tracked this information down accurately, and it does what I would call its proper job in giving a detailed synopsis of the action. There are also short profiles of the three actors, together with brief notes on the Northern Chamber Orchestra and its conductor Nicholas Ward who perform the Dumbarton Oaks concerto that provides a welcome filler to The Soldier's Tale.

I love concerti grossi, and I love the Dumbarton Oaks concerto grosso in particular. For anyone so far unfamiliar with it, Stravinsky modelled it on the Brandenburg concertos of J S Bach, using the 3-movement format that Bach uses in 5 out of his 6. The performers are the admirable Northern Chamber Orchestra, founded in Manchester in 1967. Even a small orchestra sounds rich and full-toned after the austere septet that accompanies the soldier and his tale. I enjoyed this contrast just for its own sake, and the speeds were my idea of right in all three movements. Only the first is marked `tempo giusto', but I found three tempi giusti.

Perhaps I am wrong in not giving the full 5 stars to this fine disc, but you know what my reason for that is, whatever you think of it. I am thoroughly pleased to have acquired it, and with any luck time may reconcile me, at least partially, to the text.

Any admirer of Igor Stravinsky will know not only how influential this man has become for modern-day music, but how diverse his compositions are. He has created music in three stages: Russian (The Firebird), Neo-Classical (Pulcinella), and Serial (Requiem Canticles). The Soldier's Tale (L'histoire du Soldat), in particular, is a 60-minute theatrical composition that belongs in the Neo-classical period. In collaboration with the Swiss writer C.F. Ramuz, it's basically a modern-day Faust tale which is told through narration and dialogue (there are only three actors who speak the entire time). The music itself is relatively inspired by jazz and ragtime, and only seven instruments are required: violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, and percussion. The story goes: A soldier who is on leave for only ten days meets the devil, who just happens to hear the man, named Joseph, play his fiddle. The devil asks to exchange the fiddle with a mysterious book that can give Joseph undeniable wealth. It is accepted, but as soon as Joseph becomes a man of wealth, he soon realizes that he is empty inside. The only way to redeem himself is to take back his fiddle, which is one of the things from his past that he has truly admired. Also featured on this CD is the "Dumbarton Oaks" Concerto, which is also from the Neo-Classical period. It is fifteen minutes long, and it's sure to become a little favorite among Stravinsky fans.

Conductor Nicholas Ward (also violinist for Soldier's Tale) gives a superb reading. Nothing is overblown whatsoever, and both pieces feel authentic overall. The Northern Chamber Orchestra is surprisingly fantastic: every note is played flawlessly. The actors for Soldier's Tale give very fine performances as well, though I can't help that the actor playing Joseph sounds like a young Johnny Depp (!). Naxos sound quality isn't very excellent, but it's still pretty great.

Grade: A

I love L'histoire du Soldat, yet oddly enough, I never owned a recording of it until I ordered this one. Why did I order this one? It was definitely because I'm cheap.

Naxos is a wonderful label because it provides me with good music at a low price. Thus, I can buy approximately three thousand forty-two and three quarters Naxos CD's for the price of a single recording on the Deutsche Grammophone label. The problem with Naxos, however, is the inconsistency in performance quality.

Take for instance, this CD. On it we have L'histoire du Soldat and the Dumbarton Oaks concerto. I was not extremely impressed with the performance of L'histoire, but the Dumbarton Oaks rocked me all night long, in a sense. Therefore I recommend this disc. Worth every penny (and there aren't really many of them)!

The other amusing thing on this disc is how the music and speech are separated by track in L'histoire. This way, one can theoretically program his or her CD player to tell the story backwards. However, spending so much time doing such a fruitless activity is not recommended for those of you who are college students who should be doing much more productive things like studying or going to class (in other words, people like me).