Customer Reviews

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; Berg: Chamber Concerto

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I was just thinking of Schuller's great Rite of Spring this morning. I download a lot of concerts from several concert sharing groups online. I often tend to download various performances of the Stravisnky's evocation of mystical barbarity because there are, to my ears, so few truly fine performances of the masterwork. The reasons should be pretty obvious, it seems, if you are a student of human nature. People like extremes, especially when they are basically uninspired, and in need of a schtick. So Le Sacre is either a rough and tumble romp of faux- brutal exaggeration, or a more epicene know-it-all traversal highlighting debts ot Russian orchestral tradition of the nineteenth century. There is no short-cut apparently, even for the superbly musically educated, to re-creating a work in a vigorous way. Well, that is what Schuller does here with the New England Conservatory. For me the only trouble with the CD is that the original lp, which was a privately issued fundraising effort, sounds a lot better in terms of sound. But the reading still comes through. Schuller's reading is almost neo-classical in some sense, suggesting a fusion of horizons with Stranvinsky's later works in that genre. But no matter, in fact all the better, because by that heuristic Schuller carves every detail in a surprising and, yes, frightening fashion. We finally get the work as it was intended, barbarism as very high art. And the orchestra, though presumably quite young, plays splendidly, appropriately as if with lots of string running sap. Lastly, I will note that the other review here is just ridiculous!

I took this conductor at his word after reading his book 'The Complete Conductor'. He CERTAINLY does not practice what he preaches with the what is in my opinion the pinnicle of 20th Century Music. Errors of 'interpretation' using his own methdolgy appear from the start to the finish. NOT a good recording of 'The Rite of Spring' for man nor beast. Goes to show he was 'talkin' the talk' in his book but can't 'Walk the Walk'!