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By the way, what version of the Rite of Spring do you have out there? Personally, I love the Boulez (1993) version up until the Ancients’ Rituals, in the last half of the second movement. From there, I listen to Ozawa’s 1960-something version (which is fast as all hell).
I like Boulez’s first recording with the NYPO. It’s tauter than his Cleveland remake. Ozawa’s is a great one as is Monteux’s. Muti’s with Philadelphia is for sheer orchestral virtuosity the best one I’ve heard, but I love Gergiev’s with the Kirov for the brutality and rawness he brings out in the score. In Gergiev’s hands the music has a depth and darkness that had previously eluded me. One is so used to thinking of the work as a dazzling showpiece. In his recording one really becomes aware of the work as a tocsin for the end of an era in history.
What do you think of his later works from the 1960’s? Personally I love them, especially The Flood and the Requiem Canticles. A shame they’re not played more often.
Hm, haven’t heard those yet. I also enjoy Esa-Pekka Salonen’s recent recording, especially the second half of the first movement (Spring Rounds to Dance of the Earth), which is a great deal more epic than a lot of the others. Also, if you haven’t already checked out Fazil Say’s piano recording of the Rite of Spring Four Hands on prepared piano, you are really missing out. It’s very very good, even rivalling the orchestral versions.
What do you think of his later works from the 1960’s? Personally I love them, especially The Flood and the Requiem Canticles. A shame they’re not played more often.
I’ve heard of both, but I don’t have copies of them. Are those his atonal pieces? Besides his three Ballets Russes, I have Les Noces (which is downright amazing), L’Histoire Du Soldat, Mass, Oedipus Rex, Nightingale, Symphony of Psalms, The Rake’s Progress, Pulcinella, Persephone…basically almost all of his main Neo-Classical works besides Apollo. May I ask which versions of The Flood and Requiem Canticles you recommend, and which atonal pieces to check out?
There used to be a DG disc of Stravinsky’s late works (The Flood, Abraham and Isaac, Variations for Orchestra, Requiem Canticles) coupled with a work by Charles Wuorinen based on Stravinsky’s last sketches played by the London Sinfonietta under Oliver Knussen. It’s a fantastic recording. If you’d like, I can upload it and send you the link for it. Just give me until Friday to do it.
As for the Fazil Say’s piano transcription, I’ve heard great things about it, but I have yet to listen to the recording. I have a recording of the version for two pianos with Ashkenazy and Gavrilov that is outstanding. There was a disc I heard long ago by the Amsterdam Piano Quartet playing an arrangement of the work for four pianos. It was an amazing recording.
If you want, man, that’d be cool. That doesn’t happen to be this (http://www.amazon.com/Stravinsky-Flood-Wuorinen-Reliquary-Igor/dp/B000001GPK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1218074991&sr=1-1), does it?