Customer Reviews

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

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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

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.

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

Stravinsky of course is one of the most important of 20th century composers, but he has never been one of my favorites. Beyond the radical and stunning LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS I was underwhelmed by what I heard. Then recently I was provoked to dig deeper. What was I missing? My first discovery was the 1948 ballet ORPHEUS. Hans Werner Henze said it was his favorite Stravinsky score. I listened to a recording (by Neemi Jarvi), and sure enough, it was quite lovely. Then I found that Harrison Birtwistle considered the SYMPHONIES OF WIND INSTRUMENTS to be Stravinsky's most important score, and a crucial influence on his music. So I checked out a recording (by Ashkenazy -- see my review)), and sure enough, it is a cubist sensation! Along the way I also discovered the "Symphony in C" and the "Symphony in Three Movements," both works I had heard years ago (Stravinsky's own recordings) with a yawn, but which now struck me as quite compelling.

So now I come to my latest Stravinsky discovery, this fantastic set of three ballets. The programming is brilliant -- APOLLO and ORPHEUS are both quite lovely works, the 1928 neoclassical APOLLO not quite so much as the 1948 ORPHEUS, which reflected on not just one but two horrific world wars, and incorporates Romantic elements that Stravinsky had earlier been at pains to eliminate. AGON, written between 1953 and 1957, is a quite different work, more angular and radical-sounding and providing a contrast to its bookends. It is well-known that it was written using Schoenberg's 12-tone method (after Schoenberg died in 1951), but as the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen argues in The Apollonian Clockwork, there is more continuity with Stravinsky's earlier works than with Schoenberg's. It is another of Stravinsky's works that had a huge influence on Birtwistle.

I have now finally seen the light in regard to Stravinsky's music. I don't think I was open to its charms until now. It's a wonderful thing about art -- novels, music, painting -- as we grow, and change, and perhaps mature, we come to appreciate sensibilities and modes of expression that previously left us cold.

Robert Craft leads the London Symphony Orchestra in APOLLO and ORPHEUS, recorded at Abbey Road Studio One in 1995, and the Orchestra of St. Lukes at SUNY Purchase in 1992.

This is a great Stravinsky set, highly recommended.

It's always great to go deeper into the many genres of classical music. It's not always Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven; there's more to it than just these three composers. We have Mendelssohn, Bartok, Dvorak, Mahler, Sibelius, Schumann, Debussy, Nielsen, Rachmaninov, Messiaen, Respighi, Britten, Puccini, Glass, Tavener, Stravinsky, and so on. Stravinsky in particular is considered by many to be the most influential composers of the 20th Century. Not only is he well-known for his violent ballet, "Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)," he is also known for his musically diverse compositions. They include his purely Russian compositions like "Petrushka," Neo-classical works like "Symphony of Psalms," and pieces involving Schoenberg's 12-tone serialism such as "The Flood."

The works on this CD are strictly from Stravinsky's Neo-classical and serial periods. All three ballets presented here are based on Greek Mythology. All are arranged for small orchestras, and all are highly distinctive. Apollo is performed with only the strings, while the orchestra for Agon is never played altogether (specific instruments are used in each section of the ballet). These ballets share an otherworldly lyricism that's found nowhere in, say, "Le Sacre" or "Symphony in Three Movements." And all three give me a worthwhile experience while I listen to them.

Robert Craft continues to amaze as one of Stravinsky's most authentic conductors. Here, he follows the scores very closely, and he makes sure the two orchestras (London Symphony, and Orchestra of St. Luke's) never lose control overall. He makes a splendid effort, and he deserves an award for these recordings. The CD overall is a fantastic addition in my classical library. I only hope I don't lose it somehow.

Robert Craft was one of Stravinkij's best friends and worked closely with him in several circumstaces over the course of the years until the composer died. Craft was almost like a borther for Stravinsky (he lived with the russian composer's family both in California and later in New York City, and shared with him many ideas and projects which eventually culminated in a artistic relationship. Crafts wrote the libretto for The Flood and became the major biogarpher and Stravinskij's scholar publishing several numbers of books and essays on Starvinsky's ouvres and asethetic.

In this recording Craft is actually the best interpreterof Starvinsky's ballet music. Before I listened to this extraordinary Naxos CD, I thought tha Ansermet went farther than anybody else did --even more than Stravinskij himself. Craft made me change my mind: when you listen to his intepretation of this music, you have the feeling that he is talking to his longstanding friend Igor while conducting his music.

This recording will mark a milestone in revealing the beauty of Stravibnskij's music. Buy it, you won't regret it!

I WOULD MOST DEFINITELY RECOMMEND THIS CD TO ANY ONE INTERESTED IN THE MUSIC OF STRAVINSKY !

My conscience is quite clear in giving this disc a 5-star recommendation, just so long as I myself am clear who I am recommending it to. I do not presume to offer recommendations to those whose acquaintance with these scores is closer than my own. However for any music collectors who want a safe version to live with, and in particular if one version is all they want, this set ought to do very well indeed. As a conductor, Robert Craft was not born any Monteux or Boulez I dare say, but he was the composer's close friend and confidant, and judging his performances here just for themselves I do not wish to demean them with faint praise as being merely reliable. They are affectionate and beautiful readings, full of the understanding of the composer's mind that Craft was uniquely well placed to gain. The quality of the playing is good, as you would expect considering who the players are, the quality of the recording is good, as you would expect from sessions done in 1992 and 1995, and the quality of the liner note is what you would expect from Craft himself.

Craft knows all about the history of these works' composition. He is also of course enlightening when he discusses the changes in the master's musical idiom between 1927 and 1957, the earliest and latest dates of these three ballets. As can often happen with experts, he gets rather tied up in his own details, and nothing he says strikes me as blindingly revelatory. It is informed and sympathetic opinion, not some gospel so far as I am concerned. He also lets his own artsy chatter run away with him at times. For instance, just as I was getting my mind around the concept that `Apollo...is associated with the Oriental sacred number seven, which corresponds to the diatonic mode', I was hit in the next paragraph with the proposition that `Stravinsky may have been struck by such other parallels as the "threes" of the Muses, the Magi and triadic harmony'. Apart from anything else, there were nine Muses of whom Stravinsky selects three. To say that having selected three for himself he was then awestruck with their threeness is the sort of gush that should encourage us all not to surrender our critical faculties to any expert however eminent.

Apart from the soundness of this set in satisfying the basic requirements, it is of course another Naxos bargain, and let me repeat for the nth time my appreciation of the service that Naxos provides to lovers of good music. As well as that, it is a very coherent and thoughtful selection, as these three ballets, quite widely separated in date of composition and in compositional style, have an obvious common theme of Greek culture, and Craft quotes some interesting remarks of the composer's own about his view of that. These confirm what I, and I'm sure many others, see as the constant attributes of Stravinsky as a musical creator through all his stylistic changes, namely his love of balance and clarity. It seems to me that he got off on the wrong foot to some extent with the notorious riot at the premiere of the Rite of Spring. That uproar had more to do with the risqué choreography than with the music, the supposedly iconoclastic aspects of the score have been talked up in an exaggerated way, I can hardly imagine anyone these days thinking of it as radical in idiom, and the latest account of it that I have acquired, from Boulez, highlights for me its beauty and elegance, qualities that adorn all Stravinsky's music through all his changes of persona such as are presented to us on this disc.

You can believe the figure given on the back of the box for the playing time, namely 77 minutes 45 seconds. This is consistent with the playing time for Apollo given in the liner (which equates within one second to the timings quoted for the ten individual movements) and not with the shorter time stated on the box. Great value as I was saying, and even this discrepancy resolving in our favour.