Search - Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Valery Gergiev :: Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring / Alexander Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy - Valery Gergiev / Kirov Orchestra

Wonderful performance from the Kirov

Daniel L. Ayala | Columbia, SC United States | 01/02/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I hadn't been a fan too much of Gergiev since a DG release of the 1945 version of Firebird and other stravinsky orchestral selections. However, this cd is a revelatory reading of both the Stravinsky and Scriabin pieces. This cd is simply unavoidable due to the hype its received over the past year or so. Since i have been an avid NPR listener and since this was put into the PT50...i just had to check it out. So i did, and loved it. Gergiev does indeed take a very different approach which makes this cd so successful. The bass drum pounds rather than sounding muffled. The brass are not exploited as they have been in other recordings i have. Overall, a very powerful recording. The Scriabin i think needs to be appreciated more by the other reviewers. Gergiev takes a wonderful and straightforward approach to this piece and then at the last 5 mins gives it a wollop that i do not think can be surpassed by anyone. There simply arent many recordings out there of the poem readily available so this one really i think holds its own in the market. I have 4 interpretations of this piece with Maazel, Ashkenazy and Boulez...and my favorite was the Boulez until i picked this up....now hearing the Boulez makes you want to cry. Really the Poem should get more credit, its beautiful and almost frightening toward the end...quite exalting, and definitely indicitive of its "ecstacy" like qualities."

A Rite with a distinctive voice, though the orchestra isn't

John Grabowski | USA | 12/01/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"From the opening murmurs, it's clear this is a Rite with a difference. The bassoon solo is truly eerie and mysterious--so many other conductors just toss this off in a blase manner that robs it of its portent, and that makes it easy to forget how attention-getting this music was in 1913 (to say the least).



After so many Rites that sound fairly interchangeable, played with faultless technique but little interpretive insight, here's a fresh vision of what has become, let's face it, a warhorse. And Gergiev *almost* pulls it off perfectly--yes, I'm being extra-critical because I was told and had read that this CD is practically The Second Coming. Well, it *almost* is. After the best Introduction I've *ever* heard, the Dances of the Young Girls has all the barbarism and earthiness it requires, and builds to a suitably explosive climax and a taut Ritual of Abduction. And that's where the first problems creep in. I don't know if it's an engingeering flaw or what, but when the French horns first appear here, they are virtually inaudible. It's as though this were a closely-miked CD (it probably was--almost all are today) and someone forgot to turn up the mikes for the horns at that point. A few moments later they are fine. But there are other moments throughout where certain lines, particularly in the brass, are drowned out. And the trumpets and horns sometimes sound like they are struggling (which I'm sure they are at points; this is extremely difficult music of course). The while the trombones are magnificently gross in Spring Rounds, and have terrific dark bite in Ritual of the Rival Tribes, the trumpets barely make it in the climactic Procession of the Sage, and somehow things don't end with *quite* enough bite there. The various rhythmic elements aren't as clearly delineated as they could be either, and as other have pointed out, there are some outright mistakes, particularly in percussion cues. But this is far from the first recording with this problem. It also may just be a bias of mine: I prefer a rough and raw Rite to a more perfect and polished one. Monteaux on RCA is one of my other favorite CDs of this piece, and that too has a lot of snags in the performance. They don't bother me.



Yes, there is roughness here; there also are extraordinary bits of textural detail and dramatic moment that I've never heard in a Rite before. He really draws out the lento of The Kiss Of The Earth (unmarked in the CD booklet for some reason, but it's the slow quiet bit that comes just before the explosive end of the first part), lingering on the rest just before 72 in the score and dwelling on that magnificent "ppp" chord in the strings. (And they really play it ppp--the effect is spooky.) Similarly, in the Introduction to Part Two, he brings out marvelous detail in the interplay among flutes, piccolos and piccolo clarinets in a way I've never before heard. Similarly, the rhythmic pizz. strings/horn combo in Ritual Action of the Ancestors is so clear and well-voiced that this section takes on a color and dimension I've not heard before. Throughout this Rite, Gergiev takes his time and the result is great transparency. Throughout this Rite he draws out the details; slow parts are luxuriously slow, while the fast parts are never overly fast. (Only Ritual of the Rival Tribes seemed a *little* brisk to me.) Gergiev's dramatic, unscripted last pause before the final chord (delivered like Barry Bonds slamming one out of the stadium) is appropriately primal, if perhaps not sanctioned by the composer.



The Poem of Ecstasy, after such a thrilling Rite, is almost like an afterthought. I have little to compare this Poem to--just two other recordings by Inbal and Boulez, and no access to a score, so I'll leave that to someone else, as well as someone with more of an affinity for Scriabin. Suffice it to say this disc is well worth it for the Rite alone. This recording stands, along with Markevitch, Mouteaux, and Raphael Fruhbeck de Burgos (sorry, Lenny!) as one of the great Rites on record. (Avoid the composer's own recording, unless you are a Stravinskyphile or enjoy clumsy and stiff conducting.)"