Mini review of 22 disc Stravinsky box set

Posted by Thornhill (A) on August 2, 2007 at 19:46:09

I received the box set in the mail last week and have been going through it at one disc a day.

The box is identical to the 1990s Stravinsky Edition box set, except that there are no liner notes or translations (the brief essay that is included does make note of the widely known fact that Stravinsky did not trust his conducting abilities and had Robert Craft rehearse the orchestra for him in the recordings sessions). The box takes up as much space as 6 jewel cases.

For those that own a lot of Stravinsky, the box offers rarely performed/recorded works and editions that you probably do not have. For those listeners who only own the 3 major ballets, the box gives an extremely wide overview of the composer at little cost.

In the major works, other orchestras and conductors have turned out better performances. The "Rite" is certainly an individualistic performances, but not quite the revelation you'd hope to be produced by the composer conducting it. In the lesser known, but *not* lesser works, Stravinsky's conducting is more compelling, probably because he was less self-conscious of what others had done. The recording of "The Rake's Progress," for instance, is superb -- easily one of the best. (And given that the "Rake" is an outstanding opera and in English, it's surprising how rarely it is performed in American opera houses).

The music is grouped by genre. I'm probably the one person who would have preferred it if Sony put it in chronological order. What I find so great about Stravinsky is that he constantly changed his compositional style. As soon as he mastered a style, he moved on to something different. He was never afraid to challenge himself and learn something new. For instance, consider an early work like the four movement Symphony in E-flat from 1907. Though a little fluffy, it's a pretty successful composition in the style of Rimsky-Korsakov. Stravinsky probably could have had a successful career composing this type of music. But instead he switched to a more modernist style. After the "Firebird," "Petrushka" and "Rite," he again could have just made a career out of composing these huge and dramatic ballets. But instead he again changed gears and switched his style to neoclassical. And then again later, he moved on to twelve tone. So had the box set been organized by year of composition, I think it would have been a lot of fun to trace the development of Stravinsky's style.

The quality of the recorded sound greatly varies. Never worse than what Columbia/CBS gave other orchestras. Sometimes pretty good.

Given the low price -- I paid $39 at Amazon; they now list it for $43 -- I cannot imagine why anyone would not want to buy this box (unless you hate Stravinsky).

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Topic - Mini review of 22 disc Stravinsky box set - Thornhill 19:46:09 08/02/07 (2)

got the LP set of all his recorded performances - docw 16:43:21 08/03/07 (0)

Thanks for the tip! - C.B. 04:20:30 08/03/07 (0)

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