While Monteux’s Petrushka
is an old friend this was my first experience
of his Rite. Monteux conducted the premières
of both works, as well as that of Ravel’s
Daphnis et Chloë, but, while his
recording of the latter is a classic
of the gramophone and his Petrushka
has always been well-liked, I’ve never
seen his Rite placed at the top of anybody’s
list. I had rather assumed that the
poor old chap was coping manfully with
something a bit beyond him, something
which needed a new generation of conductors
to come to terms with it. I’m happy
to relate that it isn’t like that at
all, but let’s begin with Petrushka.
Back in the days of
LP I had this recording and Stravinsky’s
own and I have to say that Stravinsky’s
recordings of his own music were my
personal point of entry into the world
of a composer who perplexed me by his
apparent changes of direction, as he
perplexed many who grew up in the days
when he was still a living legend .
There seemed to many of us at the time
that there were three Stravinskys (at
least) with no point of contact between
them. It was Stravinsky himself who
convinced me that all his work, early,
middle and late, came from one man.
Wherever you turn in his recordings
you find that volcanic Russian energy
which courses through The Rite of Spring
but also (in his hands) through the
neo-classical works to the later serial
ones, as well as those echoes of inexorably
plodding cortèges, his inheritance
from the Orthodox Church, which are
at the root of much of the Rite, but
also (again, in his own hands), of such
moments as the Coachmen’s Dance from
Petrushka, the Symphony of Psalms (fairly
obviously) and even many of the neo-classical
works – Pulcinella for instance – which
other conductors treat as ear-tickling
charmers.
But, having long ceased
to worry about the "three Stravinskys",
I’m not sure that the comparison doesn’t
go the other way now. Even in my youth
I had to admit that Monteux was more
communicative, more of a story-teller.
I was partly influenced by the fact
that, while Stravinsky’s recording sounded
reasonably well in its LP form and on
the equipment I then had, I spent a
lot of time twiddling knobs to try and
bring the Monteux into decent focus,
and got very frustrated since, having
got one section to sound better, I had
to start twiddling again a few minutes
later. So all thanks to the remastering
engineer, Andreas Torkler of Sonopress
Studios, Gütersloh, Germany, for
having revealed a recording with both
bloom and brilliance, remarkably good
for its date.
And what an artist
Monteux was! His opening scene is a
mite slower than Stravinsky, and this
enables him to produce a range of orchestral
colour, of affectionate phrasing and
balletic lilt. Its heady amalgam of
Rimsky-Korsakov and late-Debussy once
seemed un-Stravinskian, but now it seems
a blueprint for performances by such
conductors as Dutoit and Abbado who
grew up when this music was already
established concert fare.
So what of the Rite?
Firstly, while his earliest recordings
found the orchestra, if not the conductor,
groping for the notes, with the help
of the Boston Symphony Orchestra which
was welcoming back a man they all adored
but who had been forbidden to mount
their podium during Koussevitzky’s long
reign as a result of the latter’s professional
jealousy, this is a performance where
the sparks frequently fly. Maybe there
isn’t quite the whip-crack precision
in "Mock Abduction" which
we have heard from Boulez, but there
is vivid characterization and, in the
matter of tempi, this is a performance
which needs to be studied carefully.
As often with conductors
of an earlier generation, slow tempi
tend to be less slow, and (but more
marginally) fast tempi tend to be less
fast than we usually hear now. The opening
is almost disconcertingly swift, but
a refreshing antidote to some of the
more lugubrious evocations we often
hear. The same can be said of the opening
of Part II, where something of mystery
is perhaps lost in favour of flowing,
balletic movement. Most notable of all
are the final two tableaux, which have
often been spelt out too deliberately,
primevally timeless maybe, but lacking
in impetus; no danger of that here as,
with percussion well to the fore, the
Ancients crowd impulsively upon their
victim. Altogether, an enthralling,
colourful and frequently fearsome Rite.
I didn’t look at the
recording date until afterwards and
quite frankly, I would never have guessed
it was over fifty years old; it really
is extraordinarily good. Whether it
always sounded so good I have no idea,
but it sounds like one of the classic
Rites to me – and recorded in a single
day! If you want bargain versions of
these scores and don’t insist on having
them labelled DDD, don’t hesitate. If,
like me, you are interested in classic
performances from the past, then don’t
miss these finely remastered accounts.
Christopher Howell
alternative
coupling
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Pierre Monteux 
