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STRAVINSKY PETROUCHKA & THE FIREBIRD SACD |
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Confused about how a Hybrid Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) works? Click
here to learn about the technology.
This SACD will play on all 2 channel (stereo) SACD players.
Following up on their critically acclaimed recording of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2
in D Major and Tubin’s Symphony No. 5 in B Minor, Paavo Jarvi and the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra are back with three of Igor Stravinsky’s most provocative
works, The Firebird Suite, Petrouchka and Scherzo a la Russe.
Facing an intriguing compositional challenge in the Firebird, Stravinsky
followed the example of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel and
represented the natural characters and scenes in a diatonic style, while the
supernatural was interpreted with chromatic music. The orchestration in Firebird
is spectacular. One instance is the famous passage of natural harmonic string
glissandos at the end of the introduction. Also, the vivid drive of the
“Infernal Dance” foreshadows the brutally primitivistic world of The Rite of
Spring.
Petrouchka is a story of a puppet who is made of straw and sawdust but with the
capacity to love. He is to the Russians what Pierrot is to the French, Punch to
the English and Pinocchio to the Italians—a not-quite-real being whose tragedy
is his very real passion, which make him yearn for an unattainable human life.
At one time, Petrouchka was once thought fearfully dissonant. The most famous
dissonance is the “Petrouchka chord,” a combination of C major and F-sharp major
triads first heard in the clarinets just after the opening of the second scene.
This strident sonority, which returns periodically throughout the remainder of
the ballet, represents Pertrouchka’s insults. Despite this and other
dissonances, and despite jagged rhythms and irregular meters, Petrouchka has
remained one of the most popular of twentieth-century compositions.
Stravinksy moved from Europe to America in 1939 and settled in Los Angeles,
where he came into contact with the Hollywood entertainment industry. He had a
genuine affection for the Hollywood style but unfortunately none of his music
ended up in any movies. The best example of this style is Scherzo a la Russe,
which was supposed to be part of the soundtrack for the movie The North Star,
which was made in response to President Roosevelt’s appeal to Hollywood for some
films that paid tribute to the Russian troops fighting the Nazis. The work’s
Russian influence is quite palpable. Particularly significant in this regard is
the combination of harp and piano (in close canon) in the works’ first trio.
This sonority invokes that of the gusli, an instrument used by Russian traveling
folk singers and clowns.
One of the most sought-after conductors of his generation, Paavo Jarvi became
the twelfth music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in September
2001. A forty-year-old American born in Estonia, Maestro Jarvi has earned praise
from critics around the world. A pupil of Leonard Bernstein, “he has much of the
latter’s charisma and a similar ability to galvanize an orchestra into playing
with furious intensity and bravura panache,” said Tim Ashley in The Guardian. He
will lead the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in twelve weekends of concerts and
five tour performances in the U.S. in the 2002-2003 season, his second as music
director. His first recording with Telarc, in August 2001, was Berlioz’s
Symphonie fantastique and the Love Scene from Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette. “The
brilliance of Berlioz’ orchestration is brought out in finely detailed sound
with textures clarified,” wrote Edward Greenfield in Gramophone. His second
Telarc recording of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 and Tubin’s Symphony No. 5 was also
critically acclaimed, Stephen Johnson of BBC Music Magazine said, “All credit to
Paavo Jarvi—these are gripping, deeply felt performances.”
Musicians: Paavo Jarvi conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; Michael
Chertock, piano on Petrouchka.
Selections:
Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka (1947 version)
1. The Shrove-Tide Fair. The Magic Trick. The Russian Dance
2. Petrouchka's Room
3. The Blackamoor's Room. Dance of the Ballerina. Waltz of the Ballerina and the
Blackamoor
4. The Shrove-Tide Fair. Dance of the Nursemaids. Peasant with Bear. Gypsies and
a Rake Vendor. Dance of the Coachmen. Masqueraders. Scuffle of the Blackamoor
and Petrouchka. Death of Petrouchka. Police and the Juggler. Apparition of
Petrouchka's Ghost.
5. Stravinsky: Scherzo a la Russe
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite
6. Introduction
7. The Firebird and her Dance / Variation of the Firebird
8. Round of the Princesses Khorovod
9. Infernal Dance of King Katschei
10. Berceuse
11. Finale
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