{"id":11345,"date":"2013-05-29T15:25:44","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T19:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=11345"},"modified":"2013-07-02T23:01:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T03:01:47","slug":"le-sacre-du-printemps-at-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=11345","title":{"rendered":"Le Sacre du printemps at 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark <\/strong><\/p>\n

At the very moment I post this blog,\u00a0100 years ago in Paris there was a riot going on\u00a0in the newly\u00a0opened Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es. Even those who have never heard Igor Stravinsky\u2019s Le Sacre du printemps<\/em> know about the uproar\u00a0that ensued moments into its first performance. I\u2019ve probably heard this work in concert and on recordings more than any other. And now I\u2019ve heard it even more, thanks to omnibus \u201ccap\u201d box sets released by Decca and Sony to commemorate the occasion.<\/p>\n

The Decca \u201c100th Anniversary Collectors Edition\u201d is amazing, incorporating every recording made on the British Decca, German Deutsche Grammophon, Dutch Philips, and American Mercury labels, as well as a couple of stray recordings owned by the umbrella company, Universal Classics. Spanning 1946 (Eduard van Beinum leading Amsterdam\u2019s Concertgebouw Orchestra) to 2010 (Gustavo Dudamel leading the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela), these 35 recordings of the full-orchestra version present as vivid a history of the European style of recorded sound in the post-War era as we are likely to find in a single release.<\/p>\n

Fleshing out this 20-CD Sacre<\/em> set are three recordings for piano duet and Stravinsky\u2019s 1935 recording of his Violin Concerto with Samuel Dushkin, the work\u2019s first performer. The 21-minute concerto stands alone on the final CD; presumably the compilation producer, Tony Shaw, thought the performance too important historically to omit, even if his company lacked further appropriate material to fill out the disc. Kudos, Mr. Shaw! Too bad there wasn\u2019t a recording horn around on June 9, 1912, for the first performance of the not-quite-complete duet version. The pianists were Stravinsky and Claude Debussy.<\/p>\n

Only five recordings of Le Sacre<\/em> preceded the van Beinum\/Concertgebouw one:<\/p>\n

(1) Orchestre symphonique du Gramophone\/Pierre Monteux, 1929 (Pearl)<\/p>\n

(2) Orchestre symphonique\/Igor Stravinsky, 1929 (Pearl)<\/p>\n

(3) Philadelphia Orchestra\/Leopold Stokowski, 1929-30<\/p>\n

(4) Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York\/Igor Stravinsky, 1940<\/p>\n

(5) San Francisco Symphony\/Pierre Monteux, 1945<\/p>\n

The new Sony \u201c100th Anniversary Collection,\u201d one of the label\u2019s three releases this month in homage to Le Sacre du printemps<\/em>, includes the 1929 Stokowski and 1940 Stravinsky. Unlike Decca\u2019s \u201cSacre<\/em>-Geek\u201d Edition, this 10-CD set doesn\u2019t collect all the Sacre<\/em>s in its catalogue. Missing are the 1945 RCA San Francisco\/Monteux, the 1958 Columbia New York Philharmonic\/Leonard Bernstein (see below), and the 1978 Columbia New York Philharmonic\/Zubin Mehta versions. My completist tendencies would prefer to have them all in one set, like the Decca. But Sony does include Monteux\u2019s 1951 Boston Symphony recording\u2014easily the best of the four by the man who conducted the world premiere\u2014and Mehta is represented by his 1969 Los Angeles recording in the Decca box. I am happy to have this set\u2014even if I had already heard all the recordings except the never-reissued 1955 Philadelphia\/Ormandy. However, I must protest the absurdly\u00a0trying space-saving solution to the listing of track timings, printed in small type on a grey background. WHAT ARE DESIGNERS THINKING? For a sensible, well-organized, readable layout, look to the Decca booklet.<\/p>\n

A hardbound two-CD set couples the composer\u2019s 1960s stereo and 1940s mono recordings of Le Sacre<\/em> and the revised 1945 Firebird<\/em> Ballet Suite. This release is evidently aimed at those who only want Stravinsky\u2019s own Sacre <\/em>recordings since those are in the 10-CD set as well. But what about those collectors who want the \u201cbonus\u201d Firebird<\/em>s too? In the great Columbia Records tradition of \u201cscrew the customer,\u201d they have to purchase both sets.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not quite sure when Bernstein\u2019s 1958 New York Philharmonic recording of Le Sacre<\/em> became \u201clegendary,\u201d but it\u2019s an exciting, expressive performance that reportedly wowed the composer. A handsomely designed double-gatefold package was released singly earlier this month. The sound is more open than on earlier CD incarnations and strikes me as being from the master tapes, but why didn\u2019t Sony say so? What does \u201coriginal analogue sources\u201d in the booklet credits mean? Or \u201ca new audio transfer from the original reels\u201d in the press release accompanying the CD? More troublesome are the English horn\u2019s flubbed 32nd notes in the Ritual Action of the Ancestors section [track 13, 19 seconds], which were correct on the label\u2019s Royal Edition CD over 20 years ago. I’m sorry to say, the new disc should be withdrawn and corrected, including typos of Bernstein on the spine, and Nijinsky and Roerich on captions.<\/p>\n