Stravinsky: Ragtime, for eleven instruments

Recording made in 1995.

This recording was highly praised when released and in 2001 was awarded a Grammy.

Stravinsky never had much time for conventions. His teacher Rimsky-Korsakov was similarly maverick, and was at his best when free of the strictures of the symphony and classical form. Stravinsky openly defied the Austro-German way of doing things, and adopted an unpredictable (if at times neo classical) style, and this CD contains some of the smaller works he produced that illustrate is unique, and sometimes quirky style. The two Suites were arranged from the original piano pieces intended for children. The three pieces for string quartet are unlike anything form the period – 1914. No sign of late romanticism here, or of the Second Viennese School. It is an utterly unique and new sound word – icy, different, but very Russian. The Octet sounds superficially like a dissonant wind divertimento by Mozart.

Stravinsky’s opposition to the traditional structures of classical music softened a little towards the end of his life, and the Scherzo a la Russe and the Concerto in D for strings illustrate this well with their less spiky sound, and longer melodic lines. The complete list of pieces is: Tango, Suites for small orchestra, Concerto in D for strings, Concertino, Octet for winds, 3 Pieces for string quartet, Ragtime, Duet for two Bassoons, Fanfare for a New Theatre, and the Scherzo à la Russe for jazz orchestra.

Remastered from the original analogue tapes

Recordings: Symphony Hall, Boston, USA, May 1972 (The Soldier’s Tale: music), December 1974 (Octet, Pastorale, Ragtime, Septet, Concertino), April 1978 (Berg: Adagio, Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony); Polydor Studios, London, UK, July 1975 (The Soldier’s Tale: speech)

Stravinsky’s tongue-in-cheek morality masterpiece, The Soldier’s Tale, is one of his cleverest and most enduring works, here receiving its first outing on CD, following several requests. It boasts a stellar cast, not only of musicians, drawn from the Boston Symphony and soloists in their own right, but also of the narrators/actors – Sir John Gielgud, Tom Courtenay and Ron Moody, with English texts by Michael Flanders & Kitty Black.

The couplings include the BSCP’s complete LP of chamber music by Stravinsky (the Concertino and Septet being released on CD for the first time), and also works by Schoenberg and Berg, previously unissued internationally on CD.

On the face of it one would have thought that there was little in common between Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), two interesting facts prove otherwise.

Britten, born in Lowestoft in Suffolk on 22nd November (St. Cecilia’s Day), had already and studied with Frank Bridge by the time he went to Gresham’s School in Holt, Norfolk, in September 1928. The Master in charge of music on meeting him remarked “Oh, you’re the boy who likes Stravinsky!” Today that remark might be considered a compliment, at that time Stravinsky was reviled as THAT composer who had perpetrated the outrage called “The Rite of Spring” fifteen years earlier.

The funeral service for Stravinsky, who died on 6th April 1971 in New York, was held as he had requested in Venice nine days later and he was laid to rest near his friend and ballet impresario, Serge Diaghilev, on the Island of San Michele. Britten, too, had a great love for Venice as can be heard in his last opera based on Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice”.

Both composers are also high on Sir Simon Rattle’s list of favourite composers. In 2003 he and his Berlin Philharmonic gave workshops and a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to the city’s disadvantaged children and as a past Artistic Director of Britten’s beloved Aldeburgh Festival he has conducted many of his works including a number of those that had been found after the death of the composer.

The box of Stravinsky contains works from all parts of his musical life including six ballets; three major ones from his youth – The Firebird, showing the inspired palette for exotic colour learnt from his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, Petrushka (in its revised version of 1947) and The Rite of Spring; two in his Neo-Classical style – Apollo and Pulcinella and extracts from Agon which shows the influence of his studies of serial technique as expounded by Anton Webern. There are also a number of his works that were inspired by jazz.

The box of Britten contains besides the three great song cycles (Les Illuminations, Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings and Nocturne) the “War Requiem”, “Sinfonia da Requiem”, the ever popular “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” and the most remarkable set of songs written in French when he was 15, “Quatre Chansons Françaises”.