Stravinsky - Les Noces · Mass · Cantata
This is an outstanding disc of Stravinsky's choral music, beginning with a visceral performance ofLes Nocesthat captures the raw barbarism of the score. If you like Orff'sCarmina Burana, this is where it comes from. A series of tableaux depicting a peasant wedding,Les Nocesis a revolutionary work--and it sounds it in this blazing performance. The Mass is revolutionary in a different way, returning to earlier music traditions like Gregorian chant. It can sometimes sound too ascetic for its own good, but Reuss's superb chorus and wind band invest it with the warmth and color it needs to make its full effect. The Cantata, written four years later in 1952, is a prime example of Stravinsky's late neo-classicism. Based on medieval English texts, its small chorus and soloists, sparely backed by a chamber band, rebuke the work's neglect through their incisive performance.-- Dan Davis