COMPOSERS: Stravinsky
LABELS: RCA Red Seal Twofer
WORKS: Petrushka; The Rite of Spring; The Firebird Suite; Divertimento ‘The Fairy’s Kiss’; Pulcinella Suite
PERFORMER: RPO/Yuri Temirkanov
CATALOGUE NO: 74321 34176 2 1989/90
The Rite of Spring is a work of blazing genius (not a genial work, as the mistranslated liner note has it) but you wouldn’t know it from this recording, with its generally sluggish tempi and lack of rhythmic tension. Petrushka suffers from the same malaise, and when the players try to push things along, shaky ensemble results. A pity the second disc wasn’t reissued separately: the more Romantic world of The Firebird and the Divertimento encourages nicely moulded performances, and Pulcinella is pointed and precise. Martin Cotton
Stravinsky: Petrushka; The Rite of Spring; The Firebird Suite; Divertimento 'The Fairy's Kiss'; Pulcinella Suite
The Rite of Spring is a work of blazing genius (not a genial work, as the mistranslated liner note has it) but you wouldn’t know it from this recording, with its generally sluggish tempi and lack of rhythmic tension. Petrushka suffers from the same malaise, and when the players try to push things along, shaky ensemble results. A pity the second disc wasn’t reissued separately: the more Romantic world of The Firebird and the Divertimento encourages nicely moulded performances, and Pulcinella is pointed and precise. Martin Cotton
Our rating
3
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm