Robert Craft knows Stravinsky’s mature music like no one else. Where his performances of the early ballets sometimes suffer from a lack of sheer physicality, he seldom puts a foot wrong in the post-Rite of Spring works. The Symphony in C offers a classic case in point. In less expert hands, the piece can sound hopelessly arid and mechanical. Craft’s sprightly tempos and vivacious rhythms float Stravinsky’s tunes with unfettered elegance. He allows the first movement development to build to a passionate climax and slams home the final chords with welcome vehemence. In the second movement the sweet-toned Philharmonia principal oboe offers the epitome of graceful innocence, while the symphony’s last two sections surge with energy, the quiet coda emerging without any sense of anti-climax and with perfect balances between strings and winds. If you think you don’t like this symphony, you should hear what Craft does with it. He just might change your mind.
The other major work, the suite from The Soldier’s Tale, emerges with similar freshness and vigor. Principal trumpet, trombone, double bass, and violin sound completely idiomatic and rhythmically secure, and I only wish the recording brought out the percussionist’s different drum timbres with a bit more presence and clarity. No such problems affect the Symphonies of Wind Instruments. Craft delivers a grave, intense, but always flowing reading of this wonderfully stark, strange masterpiece. The disc also includes three novelties: the zesty Concertino for Twelve Instruments, the delicious little Pastorale for Violin and Woodwind Quartet (a favorite “filler” on classical radio stations, which many listeners will recognize), and Stravinsky’s arrangement of the Volga Boat Song for winds and percussion–it comes out sounding like a sort of Russian Fanfare for the Common Man. Excellent recorded sound, my minor reservation concerning The Soldier’s Tale notwithstanding. This is becoming a very fine series indeed.
