Stravinsky: Agon ‘Ballet for Twelve Dancers’

“…virile, cogent performances… The statuesque quality of these ballets is ever-present, but these performances also bring them vividly to life in the mind's eye.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2009

“…performances that project vibrant rhythmic urgency alongside a wonderful attention to internal detail and a subtle control of instrumental colour.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2009 *****

“This is a fine new Stravinsky disc from the excellent partnership of Ilan Volkov and the BBC SSO … It’s an account that is similar in many ways to Stravinsky’s own Sony Classical recording, but obviously in better sound. Volkov and his players seem to perform the work with even greater confidence and joie de vivre … The notes are by Stephen Walsh and are a model of clarity and conciseness, allied to deep understanding of the music. With such purposeful, sensitive conducting and such assured playing, this can be very warmly recommended” International Record Review

“Both works [Jeu de cartes and Agon] suit Volkov's sinewy, precise style down to the ground, and are quite thrillingly played.” The Guardian, 11th September 2009

“Having only four rehearsals at his disposal, Stravinsky achieved remarkable results… Although the performance of Agon is hardly pristine, there's a greater sense of rhythmic tension in the performance than the more technically secure studio recording made by the composer...” BBC Music Magazine, June 2009 ****

“Agon was then new, and is not the easiest work to play even now...but the performance... generally does its marvellous inventions justice, showing again that annexing serial techniques only made Stravinsky more characteristically and inimitably himself. The BBC strings’ Apollo, if not the most elegant in the world, is warm-hearted and full of life. The end of Firebird, played as an encore, rounds off a truly historic disc.” Sunday Times, 1st March 2009 ****

“Their tense astringency is compelling, and the sense of a very special occasion is palpable from the start.” The Guardian, 27th March 2009

“Conducting his own music on a visit to London in 1958, he gives his recently composed ballet music Agon a fiercely angular reading, full of snap and fizz. The Symphony is given a similarly committed performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though they seem at moments to escape the composer's baton. Only in the neo-classical Apollo is a little lyricism allowed to round the edges” The Telegraph, 18th February 2009

“Pungent and absorbing performances of three late Stravinsky scores. I can't recall ever having enjoyed a recording of the late, gnomic Requiem Canticles quite as much as this one: certainly no performance in my experience has sounded as fluent… Agon is pure aural sculpture, angular and uncompromising... but in a performance such as this that focuses its every pungent detail makes for an alluring and stimulating listen.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2009

“The biggest challenge is surmounted in Canticum Sacrum, a work conceived for the ample acoustics of St Marks Church in Venice. In this performance its austere beauty and grandeur really come to life, aided by the outstanding choral contribution from the SWR Vocal Ensemble and an atmospheric recording. The most immediately accessible piece here is undoubtedly the ballet Agon. ...Gielen's subtle balancing of textures and his impeccable pacing of the contrasting movements, not to mention the responsive playing of the orchestra, brings immense rewards.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2009 *****

“Rarely has late, gnomic Requiem Canticles sounded so fluent, from the extraordinary prelude (a fast, nervous pulsing with string lines crossing each other), through the taut drama of the 'Dies irae' to the second interlude (so reminiscent of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments) and the chiming finale, where ritual bells are enacted by celesta, glockenspiel and vibraphone, a distant recollection of Les noces. This was Stravinsky's last major composition and although it plays for barely a quarter of an hour seems fully to justify that dodecaphonic route that so many at the time had criticised him for taking.
The marginally more expansive and noticeably more austere Canticum sacrum marked the composer's return to the Russian Orthodox faith and calls on the unique combination (unique to Stravinsky that is) of flute, three oboes and bassoons, four trumpets and trombones, harp, violas, basses and organ, in addition to the voices.
Again Michael Gielen drives a confident course through a work that brooks no compromise and culminates in a harshly oratorical 'Illi autem profectae', one of the most striking episodes in all late Stravinsky.
The ballet Agon post-dates Canticum sacrum, just, and employs an even wider array of instruments, all of them used with the greatest economy and expressive force, the distinctive and rhythmically alluring interlude/prelude, a recurring motif, connecting a series of brief but terse and mostly outspoken dance movements...The recordings are both airy and admirably clear.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Agon provides a wonderful contrast, with its appropriation of baroque dance forms, generous rhythmic and melodic invention, and constantly varied orchestration, all of which Michael Gielen and his Freiburg-based orchestra audibly relish. All three are very fine performances, and provide as good an introduction to the world of late Stravinsky as any currently available on disc.” The Guardian, 17th October 2008 ****