Books, Arts & Manners: Of Great Works and Great Modes

Macaulay said of Dr. Johnson that “our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man.” This has been applied to Igor Stravinsky, though there are some who would doubt his goodness. In brilliant and incisive comments on the music of his times and the men who performed it, he could be venomous—the venom more poisonous because there were few who could match his powers of analysis and musical observation. That his “immense presence”—a phrase of repeated authorship—dominated the music of this century there is no doubt, and the voice he fashioned out of his innovation and its combat with past expression can be said to be the authentic one of his age.

Now Sony, which took over the catalogue of Columbia and CBS Records, has issued a 22-CD collection of Stravinsky’s work as conducted by himself or by his assistant and alter ego, Robert Craft, after the composer’s health prevented him from confronting the rigors of the podium. The definitive Stravinsky oeuvre, Igor Stravinsky, 1882-1927: The Edition is described as a “monument to Igor Stravinsky” but it is also a monumental achievement in recording, for these 22 CDs will remain as a guide to the playing of Stravinsky. For him, there will be no approximations in performance and interpretation as there are for the masters of earlier times (Sony, SMK 46291-46302).

RT

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Ralph de Toledano

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Macaulay said of Dr. Johnson that “our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man.” This has been applied to Igor Stravinsky, though there are some who would doubt his goodness. In brilliant and incisive comments on the music of his times and the men who performed it, he could be venomous—the venom more poisonous because there were few who could match his powers of analysis and musical observation. That his “immense presence”—a phrase of repeated authorship—dominated the music of this century there is no doubt, and the voice he fashioned out of his innovation and its combat with past expression can be said to be the authentic one of his age.

Now Sony, which took over the catalogue of Columbia and CBS Records, has issued a 22-CD collection of Stravinsky’s work as conducted by himself or by his assistant and alter ego, Robert Craft, after the composer’s health prevented him from confronting the rigors of the podium. The definitive Stravinsky oeuvre, Igor Stravinsky, 1882-1927: The Edition is described as a “monument to Igor Stravinsky” but it is also a monumental achievement in recording, for these 22 CDs will remain as a guide to the playing of Stravinsky. For him, there will be no approximations in performance and interpretation as there are for the masters of earlier times (Sony, SMK 46291-46302).