From: rtut@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Raymond Tuttle)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: New Boulez discs on DG - review
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:50:12 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester (Rochester, NY)

After something of a hiatus, Pierre Boulez is back in the recording
studios for Deutsche Grammophon, taping the repertoire which with he
has been associated for decades.  The first two releases team him with
the Cleveland Orchestra in music by Stravinsky (435 769), and with the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra in music by Bartok (435 863). 

In various interviews, Boulez has said that his ideas about this music
have developed and changed over the years, thus his desire to record
these works again.  The Stravinsky disc contains Boulez' newest
thoughts on the ballets "Petrouchka" and "Le Sacre du printemps".  This
is at least the third time that Boulez has recorded the latter work for a
commercial label, and the second time with the Cleveland Orchestra. 

Boulez' toughest competition is himself, since that is whom he will be
judged most directly against.  The goal of these new performances
seems to be to put the music under a dissecting microscope to uncover
many details of instrumentation and rhythm that usually are buried.  Of
course DG's spectacular recording contributes greatly to this end.  In
the long run, these new looks at Stravinsky take his music farther from
the theatre and closer to the realms of pure music.  Brilliant and frigid,
Boulez' Stravinsky is wildly exciting but almost completely lacking in
warmth.  However, I find this to be a valid way to play this music. 
Considering their usual experiences with Christoph von Dohnanyi, the
Cleveland Orchestra, who play with astonishing virtuosity on this
recording, must have gone into shock immediately after the last
session in front of the microphones. 

The Bartok disc contains another ballet, "The Wooden Prince," and a
relative rarity: the "Cantata Profana," or "The Nine Splendid Stags" for
tenor (here, John Aler), baritone (John Tomlinson), double chorus (the
CSO chorus under the direction of the seemingly unstoppable Margaret
Hillis) and orchestra.  This work starts with a vicious musical
depiction of a party of nine brothers who go out hunting and
subsequently turn into stags (thus the term "stag party").  Their father
pleads with them to come home and they decline, prefering to leap on
the wild side. 

Appropriately, the colors on the Bartok disc are much darker, and this
demonstrates good matching of orchestra and repertoire.  The famous
CSO brass have a lot to do in both of these works, and they do it
excellently.  Compared to his earlier recording of the work with the
New York Philharmonic, Boulez' new recording of "The Wooden Prince" is
even broader -- too broad for my tastes.  Andras Korodi and the
Budapest Philharmonic get through this work in about 45 minutes, just
about an ideal pace as far as I am concerned.  Now, Boulez takes a full
ten minutes longer, and the ballet doesn't quite hold together anymore. 
In fact, it is hard to imagine anything human dancing to it. 

On the other hand, the orchestral playing throughout is worth hearing,
and the "Cantata Profana" sizzles.  It is for this shorter work that this
disc is worth owning, even if both the soloists (Aler especially) strain
through their cruelly difficult solos.  The recording is good but a little
glassy-sounding. 

DG promises a disc of music by Debussy with Boulez and the Cleveland
Orchestra within a few months.  A promo CD containing a "Prelude a
l'apres-midi d'un faun" from this forthcoming release indicates that
this probably will be a gorgeous disc.  Welcome back, Pierre. 




--
****************************************   Raymond S. Tuttle
"Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod,"       University of Rochester
but it's nothing to get depressed about!   (still with his two little 
****************************************   white mice).