Stravinsky has slowly but surely become the one composer that we listen to more and more. Especially during this past winter with a glass of Augusta Red in hand. We were still reeling over the Dudamel version of the Sacre when we stumbled across this gem.

This fabulous two-CD set offers so many pleasures it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with the music, which, apart from the Duo Concertant, consists of Stravinsky’s arrangements of his own music. There’s Tchaikovskian grace in the Divertimento, fantasy chinoiserie in The Nightingale, stamping Russian fervour in Petrushka and cool neo-classicism in the Duo.

But, of course, it all sounds like pure Stravinsky and miraculously apt in its new instrumental dress. Enjoying Stravinsky’s astounding skill at re-imagining an orchestral score for just two instruments is another pleasure. Then there are the performances, which have a wonderful lived-in quality. Adès handles the finger-twisting difficulties of the Duo Concertant with total aplomb, and has exactly the right incisive, luminous and chaste sound. Marwood, too, has that springy balletic quality always needed in Stravinsky, but he finds a myriad of colours to go with it: sly and sentimental in the “Chanson Russe” from Mavra, tender in the Duo. In all, it’s a marvel.

This substantial crop of violin and piano works mostly came about due to Stravinsky’s concert-giving partnership with the violinist Samuel Dushkin in the 1930s. Besides the Duo concertant, which is the only original creation, Stravinsky’s arrangements and/or re-compositions of his earlier music sometimes exist in more than one version, presenting a problem about what should constitute a ‘complete’ recording.

Adès’s touch with the piano parts is at once live-wire and beautifully stylish, with Marwood matching this flair for deftly characterised light and shade. The Duo concertant can sometimes seem a cold and (in the opening ‘Cantilène’) even abrasive statement, but not when played with this degree of poise and bombproof technical command.
The Pulcinella suite and Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss both scintillate from start to finish.

Amazon it, order it or have a friend pick up a copy when they are in the position to, but get this disc.

This is the kind of CD that makes you rub your ears. These are kids from the lowest slums of Caracas, some of them as young as twelve. They sound accomplished. And in fact, better than a lot of professional orchestras. The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra delivers a Rite of Spring that stands comparison with the best.

Dudamel’s reading is as energised and violently exultant as the old standard, Leonard Bernstein with the NY Philharmonic. Except for the eerie opening solo from the bassoon and the hushed interlude before the maiden dances herself to death, every bar is hair-raising.

Dudamel has both a charismatic and a callow side. Here, the two meld. This isn’t a reflective or thoughtful Le sacre. It’s Le sacre for the cast of “Stomp!” Not that thoughtful is a completley desirable way to approach Stravinsky’s barbaric masterpiece to begin with. Better to say perhaps that Dudamel has found his own style. He departs from Boulez’s analytical dissection, the Stravinsky’s own razor-sharp frigidity, and Maazel’s frenetic virtuosity.

Dudamel makes the score come alive viscerally. Dudamel has also made a crusade out of promoting the music of Mexico and South America. Here we get a second version of primitivism from Silvestre Revueltas, the visionary Mexican modernist who died just short of his forty-first birthday in 1940. Revueltas had heard Le sacre with open ears and offered a Latin descendant in his well known Sensamaya (Bernstein was a fan and made an early, riveting recording of it). Dudamel performs a suite taken from the 1939 film “La noche de los mayas,” directed by Chano Urueta, a contemporary of the composer’s who made films up to 1974. the style is crushingly primordial, and spookily reminiscent at times of Messiaen once the birds have flown south. Dudamel gives what sounds like a definitive performance and since the youthful percussionists of the SBYO are incendiary, the listener won’t miss the percussion cadenza added to the suite after the composer’s death.

In all, this is a recording to make you believe in Dudamel’s potential and to celebrate the growth of an impoverished youth orchestra into a force for joy and light.

For an idea of the Dudamel magic, check out the Beethoven 5th rehearsal clip.

Ambrose Bierce defined the accordion as “An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.” What’s wrong with the accordion, I ask.

Those who disrespect the accordion turn their backs on an instrument that can score every mood from depression to elation. Enter Richard Galliano’s ‘Bach’, a collection of music that should put to rest any negative connotations associated with the accordion.

One might not know it, given the instrument’s unwarranted red-headed-stepchild status, but Bach on the accordion has a venerable history. The legendary Charles Magnante, for example, opened his 1939 Carnegie Hall concert with the Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

So it’s natural that Richard Galliano, the superb French jazz accordionist, would then turn to Bach for his first classical recording. But Galliano, unusually, ventures beyond keyboard repertoire, offering transcriptions of not only the Fifth Harpsichord Concerto (BWV 1056), but also the A-minor Violin Concerto (BWV 1041) and the Concerto for Violin and Oboe (BWV 1060), as well as a handful of Bach greatest hits. Galliano, one of the foremost accordionists of our time, has practiced and performed Bach over the years, but this is the first time he has recorded the composer’s works. Accompanied by a string quintet, Galliano’s interpretations of familiar pieces such as Orchestral Suite no. 3 in D Major and Sonata for Flute and Harpsichord no. 2 in E flat major soar. Every piece performed is a gem unto itself. Playing the accordion since the age of four and recipient of the Académie du Jazz’s Django Reinhardt Prize (“French Musician of the Year,” 1993), Galliano presents his audience with faithful renderings of the music as Bach wrote it. As in any great orchestral production, the music elevates the listener who is not hearing an accordion, but the works of a master played by a master.

Dating back to the early nineteenth century, the accordion has long supplied the melody for folk music from a variety of cultures. What’s klezmer or a tarantella or a polka without an accordion? Accordionists have been the subject of jokes and wisecracks, yet they are handling an extremely complex instrument that is suited to a wide variety of music, from folk to rock to classical. Those who master it can produce rich sound that does not require accompaniment. And, really, is there anything more romantic than having a strolling accordionist stopping by a candlelit table and playing “That’s Amore”? Ok, some may find it tacky but then you can’t win them all…

It is not difficult to find reasons for the phenomenal success which Peter and the Wolf has achieved since its first performance in Moscow in 1936. It has catchy tunes; it has joy; simplicity in construction; and it has its harmonic astringencies for those who prefer lemonade to golden syrup. And over-riding the musical structure itself is the cheerful commentary of the narrator, which can be enjoyed for its own sake by all those with any sense of fun and fantasy.

Peter and the Wolf has supplied the long-felt need for an orchestral composition which would hold the interest of those persons (young or old) whose knowledge of music might at best be slight and who might have some difficulty in finding their way through the maze of an extended programmatic piece presented, in wholly musical terms. As for the idea of allocating to each character in the story a kind of musical visiting-card, this device, of course, has been used by other composers, but one doubts whether it has ever been more aptly and happily employed than here.

After the opulence of some of Prokofiev’s other works it is surprising to find how comparatively lightly scored Peter and the Wolf is. Single woodwind, trumpet, and trombone only are used, plus three horns, strings, and percussion. This limitation of forces has the advantage of making the timbres of the instruments more easily definable, and it is to be conjectured that many listeners to Peter and the Wolf gain a clearer knowledge of orchestral ‘colour’ than they might acquire from hearing half a dozen lengthy symphonies.

In the short prelude, before the fairytale actually begins, the visiting-cards of the various characters are, as it were, placed on the table for our approval or, in the case of the Wolf, disapproval. Ones choice of a favourite will depend upon individual taste, though the Cat is given the most singable and strongly individual melody ; whilst the Wolf is a suitably menacing portent of Duck’s doom.

The beginning of the story is occupied musically with presenting in full the themes allotted to each member of the cast. One may note that after Peter’s disregard of Grand-father’s warning there are two extra introductory bars before the return of his tune in the string quartet, which somehow manage to suggest the jaunty bravado of the young rip defying his aged grandparent.

Shortly after the Wolf’s appearance on the scene, the Cat’s melody is cleverly extended to describe Puss’s ascent to a safe place in the tree. (With commendable feelings for the subtleties of musical terminology, this section of the score is marked to be played Nervoso!)

Later, Peter’s efforts with the rope are indicated by fragments of his theme hesitantly played in the minor whilst the Wolf’s snappings are given orchestral bite by the addition to the scoring of the incisive tone of the side-drum.

The lowering of the lasso is obvious in the muted strings passage; and appropriate bustle in the orchestra conveys the capture and struggles of the Wolf, after which a new visiting-card is displayed for the first time -that of the Hunters. This is a grotesque, angular tune, given out in unison by the four woodwind instruments, accompanied by string pizzicati, and quickly repeated by the solo trumpet.

At length comes the Wolf’s final – if well-deserved – defeat and the ignominy of being led away in procession to the Zoo. Notice how the three horns, previously reserved for the villain of the piece, now sonorously proclaim the theme of Peter who has, one might say, triumphed. musically as well as physically.

This last procession brings before us in a farewell review the themes of all the participants in the story; sometimes they are heard alone, sometimes (e.g., Grandfather and the Cat) in combination. Naturally enough, Peter is given the biggest share of these proceedings, but even the unfortunate Duck is allowed to have a parting quack -from the inside of the Wolf -after which a short, gradually quickening coda rings down the curtain.

Frank Phillips  (narrator)
The London Philharmonic Orchestra – Nicolai Malko.

Recorded in Kingsway Hall – 5th December 1949. First LP issue (10″) -  Decca LX 3003.
Reissued 1959 as  Decca ‘Ace of Clubs’ ACL 30 -  Matrix ARL 4225 -4D
Highly recommended for performance – and sound-quality!