Grouping
Stravinsky
's music by genre is not such a common idea, but it has much to tell the listener. Witness this release from
Barbara Hannigan
, as conductor this time, and a mixed group of young musicians from the Juilliard School in New York and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Hannigan
's program spans some 50 years, from the
Three Little Songs
, written several years before their publication in 1906, and the
Septet
of 1953, a work perched inventively on the wall between
's neoclassicism and the serialism of his last years. The program runs through the composer's well-known neoclassic works for a large chamber ensemble, the
Concerto for 12 Instruments
(on which
has an assist from conductor
Charlotte Corderoy
), and the
Ragtime for 11 Instruments
. From late Russian Romanticism to Baroque structures, from an American popular idiom to the rigors of serialism,
had an absolutely distinct musical personality. His melodies, whatever the context, are coolly angular, his structures as economical as
Webern
's, his affect impersonal but not without humor. None of this is news, but this recording brings it all out with exceptional vividness. The performances are wonderful, with
leading her young charges with the rhythmic precision that makes
's music really pop.
is known more for contemporary music than for early modernism, but she obviously took to this project in a big way. The soprano
Alexandra Heath
is extraordinary, ethereal yet glassy, in the vocal pieces here, which aren't heard very often but fit in perfectly in this program. An extraordinary
release. ~ James Manheim