Stravinsky: Three Greek Ballets (Apollo, Agon, Orpheus)

Igor Stravinsky (Composer), Robert Craft (Conductor), London Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra), Orchestra of St. Luke's (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's
• Conductor: Robert Craft
• Composer: Igor Stravinsky
• Audio CD (May 17, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B0008JEKCW
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,382 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #76 in Music > Classical > Ballets & Dances > Historical Periods > Modern & 20th Century

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine Performances of Three Fine Stravinsky Ballets, June 9, 2005

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stravinsky: Three Greek Ballets (Apollo, Agon, Orpheus) (Audio CD)

Whoever had the idea of putting these performances of three of Stravinsky's ballets based on classical Greek themes on the same CD should get a medal. They are plucked and combined from several Koch Classics releases of a few years ago. Naxos seems to be reissuing all of Robert Craft's Stravinsky performances from the Koch label, and that's good. Craft, who has an unwarranted reputation as a dry-as-dust conductor, actually puts quite a bit of juice in these lovely scores. Similar as they may be in thrust, these three scores are really quite different from each other. 'Apollo' (1927-28) is for strings alone and is quintessential neoclassicism. 'Orpheus' (1947), for full orchestra, mixes neoclassicism with old-fashioned lyrical romanticism; indeed it is Stravinsky's first work since 'Firebird' to use the marking 'espressivo.' 'Apollo' and 'Orpheus' are narrative ballets but 'Agon' (1957) is plotless. It is very nearly atonal and varies the orchestration for nearly all the sixteen variations; the full orchestra is never used for any of them. Yet, within a few notes anyone familiar with Stravinsky's sound will immediately identify the composer of any of these works. It's always seemed amazing to me that a twelve-tone work by Stravinsky still sounds like him.

In 'Apollo' (or 'Apollon musagète' as it is called in French) all violence and abrasiveness (as one might expect from the composer of 'The Rite of Spring') are eschewed. Rather the work coolly and lyrically limns the birth and life of Apollo in music that is like some 18th-century court ballet filtered through 19th-century French ballet composers like Adam and Delibes. Delicious. And deliciously performed here by the London Symphony under Craft.

'Orpheus' was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein for George Balanchine who had suggested the subject. It was originally intended to be coupled with 'Apollo' in performance but in fact that did not happen at its première. Although narrative, it is intensely hieratic and uses neobaroque gestures including canon, other kinds of counterpoint, restless bass lines, ostinati and the like. It is more austere than 'Apollo' but lyrical nonetheless. It, too, is given a lovely, flexible, suave performance by the LSO.

'Agon' (Greek for 'contest') is essentially a dance contest before the gods. Not really quite atonal, but making use of a 12-tone row, it combines Renaissance dances (including a galliard in C major with a canon featuring harp and mandolin), coupled with what Stephen Walsh in Grove's calls 'high-speed stream-of-consciousness chromaticism.' Its première was conducted by Robert Craft, and here, conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke's, he leads a fast-moving performance that occasionally gets a little out of breath, but is energetic and energizing for all that.

There have been other recordings of these works, including those conducted by Stravinsky himself, but these are satisfying and in modern sound.

Recommended.

TT=77:45

Scott Morrison

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert Craft & Stravinsky: 3 Ballets on Themes of Greek Mythology, December 19, 2006

By 

Dan Fee "music fan aka drdanfee" (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stravinsky: Three Greek Ballets (Apollo, Agon, Orpheus) (Audio CD)

Naxos is doing us all a most welcome favor by re-releasing the Robert Craft performances of Stravinsky (and some Webern, and some Schoenberg) that earlier passed through on labels like MusicMaster and Koch Classics.

On this disc we get three of the later ballets that the composer did, based on Greek themes in mythology.

The earliest of these works is the ballet, Apollo. Or Apollon musagete. (1928) Craft seems to have had a complex relationship to the master, part family, part soul-mated colleague, and maybe part worshipper of the muses. He leads a deft and balanced reading of Apollo with the LSO. Do not let yourself be misled by the mainly diatonic, or major-key based, nature of this neo-classically fresh music. It is euphonius, and transcends its analytical means.

After visiting for a day with the composer, the Russian impresario Diaghilev wrote to a friend, "...it is, of course, an amazing work, extraordinarily calm and with greater clarity than anything he has done: filigree counterpoint around transparent, clear-cut themes, all in a major key, music not of this world, but from somewhere above ..."

Diaghilev got it, then, and so do Robert Craft and the players.

Second comes the latest of these 3 ballets, Agon. (1957) By this time the master was going serial, or twelve-tone, in his very own special way. He finished Agon close to his 75th birthday, and there is little or nothing quite like it in most of the published twelve-tone literature. Somehow, Stravinsky finds the intense economies that we associate with Webern while staying true to himself. There is no published scenario to Agon, as if the music were its own reason for being a ballet. The Orchestra of St. Luke's is smaller than the LSO, but no less musically gifted. Yet again, Robert Craft's leadership is astute, and he seems to have an ear no less incisive than Pierre Boulez when it comes to pitch, texture, and rhythm. What he offers that Pierre Boulez sometimes does not, at least as recorded, is a certain warmth and involvement, a certain sensory richness and physicality.

The last ballet on this disc is the one written in between Apollo and Agon: Orpheus (1946). The choice of subject originated with Georges Balanchine who was much taken with the Orpheus myth, but ballet stage designer Isamu Noguchi also deserves credit for bringing the work to life as dance, as scene, and as total art work. Stravinsky's genius was supported and nourished by the other two, and so we get a sort of return of the younger composer, all that much wiser for being able to embrace sensuality again after having survived two world wars and ending up settled amid the posturing glitz of Hollywood and southern California. Craft leads the LSO in another fine reading.

Apollo and Orpheus were caught in Abbey Road, U.K., and Agon in an auditorium at SUNY, Purchase. The sound matches the clarity, brilliance, and sensual heft of these three performances. Never flashy. No kitsch. But generous and scintillating, nonetheless.

Check out the whole Robert Craft series of recorded Stravinsky. This disc is just one among a string of finely matched pearls, waiting for the black velvet of your listening room's expectant quiet.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Return to the Greeks a la Stravinsky, June 23, 2006

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stravinsky: Three Greek Ballets (Apollo, Agon, Orpheus) (Audio CD)

This marvelous CD presents three Stravinsky ballets that deal with Greek mythology and span Stravinsky's output from 1927 through 1957 allowing us to hear the manner in which Stravinsky continued to grow with the musical changes of the times (if not invent them!). The conductor is Robert Craft, Stravinsky's longtime colleague and promoter and in these recordings, each made originally on separate sessions, he conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of St. Lukes, both ensembles having an affinity for these works.

'Apollon musagete, ballet in 2 scenes for string orchestra' (1927) is probably the finest of his neoclassical period works for orchestra alone. It can be steely cool in other's hands, but here Craft draws an achingly beautiful sound from the London Symphony. It is meditative, serenely poignant and ethereal.
'Agon, ballet for twelve dancers & orchestra' (1957) is one of Stravinsky's twelve tone works that manages to go beyond the usual constrictions of that form to become an unusually melodic work. Craft and the Orchestra of St. Lukes offer a performance that gives all of the sixteen variations individual importance.

'Orpheus, ballet in 3 scenes for orchestra' (1947) concludes the recital with the admixture of both Stravinsky's neoclassicism with his early penchant for seething romantic melody lines. This is the work of the three that will find widest audience appeal for those not yet captivated with the Stravinsky 'cerebral works' and it makes a fine way to complete this exploration into Greek themes so cleverly programmed by the reconstructors of this first class CD. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, June 06