Stravinski - Apollo, Symphony in Three Movements, Scherzo a la russe
Suites 1 & 2 Four Studies

Sir Simon Rattle City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/ Northern Sinfonia

Apollo and Symphony in Three Movements are the headliners here, and one
has to wonder if there is a more Stravinskian conductor in his outlook
than Simon Rattle.  Stravinski made much of "execution" of music over
interpretation, and Rattle drives the orchestra through this music with
a crispness and search for precision that meets the overt meaning of that
word.

But what is perhaps overlooked is that artists must sometimes lie to tell
the truth, Stravinski himself had been trained by such people as Diaghlev
who practiced and preached this doctrine.  What it means is that demanding
execution is really demanding an end to preconception, and that, when that
is done, ones eyes become accustomed to the light of the caves, and not
the lantern dragged in from above.  Once this is done, there are new
relationships seen and felt.

In this music it is in the transitions that it is most keenly felt.
Stephen Hicken wrote that transition in Stravinski is worth volumes -
I would go on step further, Stravinski's music has been so successfully
adapted to the ballet because it exists either in a state of perfect
balance, or is moving between two such states, as is true in classical
ballet and its descendant forms.  Thus transition is determined by the
two stable moments which it joins.

Here I am thing of the Pas d'action and the transitions between moments in
teh Pas de deux as really requiring a more subtle voicing, one which is not
exactly germanically tonal, but which captures the nuances of the triadic
structure none the less.

However, these are perhaps quibbles for Stravinskians to argue over too
much vodka and charteuse, for the price, these are admirable additions to
Igor's growing discography and generate the heat that has brought Rattle
to the pinnacle of the British musical world.

- - -

Vitality Begun - Judith Lang Zaimont

The white flower in green eyes.

   I cannot help but desire thy fair face,
   to rise with sun and flood our room
   with illumination born of good grace
   Banish darkness, and night's still hanging gloom.

   I cannot help but desire thine bright eyes,
   that are the fullest flood of that white dawn
   drive back worriesof dream world lies,
   As if mighty steeds of sweet hyperion.

   I cannot help but love thine sweet soul
   so hot and burning its pungent perfume -
   Jailing thus mine sweet senses without parole
   incense that shall reek in my final tomb

   Ah such love, all one's deep devotion takes
   that shall burn bright until this mirror breaks.

The desire to bring film music into the concert hall, or opera hall, is
not new.  It is clearly present in Berg's Lulu, and in the various concert
efforts from Korngold as well as other artists.  Film music often dominates
billboard's classical chart, and there is a powerful ressonance with the
vocabulary of film music in the culture at large.  As a movement, it might
be compared to all of the other occasions where concert music took a
popular form and tried to press it upwards.  There is a section of the
listening public that has searched arduously for a composer who could
do for film music what Haydn did to the operatic curtain raiser (the
synphony), mozart the aria, chopin the popular dance, schubert the art
song.

Zaimont is the latest in a long list of pretenders to this title.  As music
itself it is pleasant enough, with the occasional twist that reminds one of
Eliot Carter's very young period where he wrote "nice interesting music for
nice interesting people."

But it is the relentless prentension to newness which spoils this work,
her first symphony, her piano sonata and just about anything else which
she sets her hand to, it reminds one of Lowell Lieberman's brunch music -
well enough done, but well, enough, done.  There is nothing new here, but
the kind of new agy over done quietude which made Gorecki such a hit.

It seems to be a cardinal sin of the vapid film inspired composer to really
deliver a contrapunctal idea, where the melody exists in someplace other
than once voice at one time - or do anything really other than have obvious
melody over obvious accompaniment.  Schumann could pull this off by having
a variety of *new* ideas and rhtymic compulsions which, as lovely as they
are, do not bear vapid rearrangement there was, also, a deep constructive
motive in his structure.  It is the relentless demand that we take this
blueberries and syrup on our pancakes music as spiritual ennoblement which
is tiring.

Nice enough tunes, doesn't know what to do with them, tells us that this
music takes chances.  Another hack with delusions of adequeacy and legions
of followers breaking wind rather than playing it.

- - -

Violin Sonatas 1 & 2 - Bela Bartok
Saschko Gawriloff, Gilead Mishory.

I would like to say something nice about this disc, because bartok's
violin sonatas are among the few works in the genre that I, personally,
could not live without.  The expansiveness and range of gesture shows deep
connections with the first two string quartets, and to Bartok's exploration
of expressionistic chromaticism.  This is the Bartok that could write "our
atonal music" without feeling out of place.  And yet, there is a tonal
impetus here, but one based on a chord of five notes, overlayed upon it
a chord of five notes functioning as a kind of dominant.

The problem with this recording is that it has no feel for what is the most
basic skill in playing this music - making musical ideas with large rests
in the middle of them feel as if they are one.  Chopin demands it, and so
does Bartok.  The pianism is unvoiced and hammering, the violin, while
rustic in tone, is lockstep in rhythm.  Brutal, killing performances of
these works, and certianly not the best introduction.  These are among the
most difficult works to play, they are idiomatic, but not easy.  But the
real difficulty is feeling the rise and fall of phrases and giving them
a walking, dancing, singing or speaking shape.  Here we have various
monotones with the occasional shouting.

Stirling Newberry
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