This Panorama release has quite a bit going for it: Lorin Maazel’s bracing and brilliant Firebird suite with the Berlin Radio Symphony (one of the most exciting Danse infernale’s); Charles Dutoit’s colorful and atmospheric Petrouchka with the London Symphony; a tight-reined and tension filled Symphony of Psalms by the Russian State Academy Chorus and Orchestra under Igor Markevitch (the Exaudi is especially haunting); Pierre Boulez’s crisp and clearly delineated Dumbarton Oaks concerto; Neville Marriner’s rather conventional but enjoyable Pulcinella suite; and Herbert von Karajan’s bracing and jaunty reading of the Circus Polka. But for reasons that most probably have more to do with marketing than musical quality, Deutsche Grammophon chose to include the least successful Le Sacre du Printemps from its catalog. Karajan unspectacularly recorded the piece once before in 1966, and after a scathing review by Stravinsky himself, returned to the studio in 1977 to make an even worse one! Balances are almost always askew, with different sections of the orchestra sounding like they’re playing in different performances. Sonorities are ludicrously over-blended, rhythms are slack, percussion is mostly muted (except for the closely miked tam-tam that vanishes halfway through the Danse sacrale). Mind you, this is the recording that the British press lauded repeatedly, going on about how Karajan “so soundly” answered Stravinksy’s criticisms. (Who needs all that troublesome rhythm and percussion anyway?) What’s really irritating is that there are far superior Rites–Tilson-Thomas, Chailly, Bernstein, Colin Davis, and not earth-shaking, but still better ones by Haitink, Boulez, Ozawa, and Abbado–readily available in the Universal catalog. Enjoyable then, provided you skip tracks 7-20 on the first disc.
