Stravinsky & the Neoclassical Style Tracks and clips: 1. Introduction 9:14 a. Stravinsky, Igor (IS), The Rake’s Progress, IS, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sony

SM2K 46299 recorded June, 1964. b. IS, L’oiseau de feu Suite (1919 vers.), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Philadelphia

Orchestra (PO), Philadelphia Orchestra private label recorded 11/9/2006.* c. IS, A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, IS, Toronto Festival Singers, Sony

SM2K 46301 recorded 4/29/1962. d. IS, Ragtime, IS, Columbia Chamber Ensemble, Sony SM2K 46297 recorded

1/26/1962. e. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Fugue in c for Two Pianos, K. 426, Igor and Soulima

Stravinsky, Andante A-1100 recorded 2/14/1938. f. Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il’yich, Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35, Erica Morini, IS, New

York Philharmonic, Doremi DHR-7772 recorded 1/7/1940. g. IS, Perséphone, IS, Gregg Smith Singers, Columbia Symphony Orchestra (CS),

Sony SM2K 46300 recorded 5/4/1966. h. IS, Requiem Canticles, Robert Craft, Ithaca College Choir, CS, Sony SMK 43602

recorded 10/11/1966. i. IS, Le sacre de printemps, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, PO, Deutsche Grammophon

B0019032-02 recorded March, 2013.* 2. The Neoclassical Style 34:12 a. Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, Messe à 8 voix et 8 violons et flûtes, H. 3, Trajan

Popesco, ORTF Orchestra, Musical Heritage Society MHS 1582 released 1973. b. Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, Sub tuum praesidium, H. 28, Emmanuel Mandrin, Les

demoiselles de St.-Cyr, Veritas VIR 61527 released 1995. c. Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da, Ego sum panis vivus, Theobald Schrems,

Regensburg Cathedral Choir, Archive ARC 3182 recorded 10/6/1961. d. Piano. e. Handel, George Frideric, Messiah, HWV 56, Eugene Ormandy (EO), Mormon

Tabernacle Choir, PO, Sony SBK 48172 recorded 11/2/1958. f. Beethoven, Ludwig van, Missa solemnis in D, Op. 123, Mormon Tabernacle Choir,

EO, PO, Sony SBK 53517 recorded 3/29/1967.

g. Lassus, Orlande de, Stabat mater, Paul Hillier, Hillier Ensemble, Veritas VIR 61166 recorded 9/7/1983.

h. Beethoven, Ludwig van, Grosse fuge, Op. 133, Guarneri Quartet, RCA Victor 60458-2-RG recorded 1968.

i. Schnittke, Alfred, String Quartet No. 3, Molinari Quartet, ATMA Classique ACD22634 released 8/2/2011.◊

j. Tchaikovsky, Pytor Il’yich, Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, Leonard Rose, EO, PO, Columbia MS-6714 recorded 11/15/1962.

k. Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il’yich, Sleeping Beauty, Mikhail Pletnev, Russian National Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon 0289 477 9788 3 2 released 10/5/2011.§

l. Saint-Saëns, Camille, Septet in E♭, Op. 65, Ensemble Vivant, Opening Day ODR9739 released 4/1/2011.◊

m. Ravel, Maurice, Prélude in a, Mar. 65, Robert Casadesus, Columbia ML-4520 recorded 12/7/1951.

n. Ibid., but Le tombeau de Couperin. o. Scarlatti, Domenico, Sonata in B♭, K. 545, András Schiff, London 421 422-2

recorded September, 1987. p. Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, Lo frate ‘nnamorata, Nuccia Focile, Riccardo Muti,

Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, EMI 54240 recorded December, 1989. q. IS, Pulcinella, IS, CS, Sony SM3K 46292, recorded 8/23/1965. r. IS, Octet, IS, Columbia Chamber Ensemble, Sony SM2K 46297 recorded 1/5/1961. s. IS, The Rake’s Progress, op. cit. t. IS, Three Songs from William Shakespeare, Cathy Berberian, IS, Columbia Chamber

Orchestra, Sony SM2K 46298 recorded 12/14/1960. u. de Falla, Manuel, El amor brujo, Shirley Verrett, Leopold Stokowski, PO, Pristine

Classical PASC 264 recorded 2/12/1960.‡ v. de Falla, Manuel, Harpsichord Concerto, Tony Millan, Edmon Colomer, National

Youth Orchestra of Spain, Naïve V4642 recorded 6/13/1996.§ w. Milhaud, Darius, Suite provençal, Op. 152c, Darius Milhaud, Concert Arts

Orchestra, Naxos 9.80448 recorded 1957.◊ x. Strauss, Richard, Divertimento, Op. 86, Hiroshi Wakasugi, Tokyo Metropolitan

Symphony Orchestra, Denon CO-76366 recorded 7/15/1989. y. Penderecki, Krysztzof, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, EO, PO, Philadelphia

Orchestra private label, recorded, 1/10/1969.

z. Penderecki, Krysztzof, Sinfonietta No. 2, Antoni Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Naxos 8.572212 recorded 9/6/2008. §

3. The Dumbarton Oaks Concerto 27:33 a. IS, Concerto in E♭, Charles Dutoit, PO, Philadelphia Orchestra private label,

recorded 10/10/2008.* b. Bach, Johann Sebastian, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1049, Harry

Newstone, Hamburg Chamber Orchestra, Saga STXID 5031 released 1959. c-f. IS, Concerto in E♭, op. cit. g. Bach, Johann Sebastian, op. cit. but Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046. h-t. IS, Concerto in E♭, op. cit. 4. Stravinsky: An Appreciation 4:10 a. IS, Jeu de cartes, IS, CS, Sony SM3K 46292 recorded 3/13/1964. b. IS, Greeting Prelude, IS, CS, Sony SMK 46296 recorded 12/17/1963. Many of these recordings are available as paid downloads: (*) hdtracks.com, (◊) eclassical.com, (‡) pristineclassical.com, (§) prestoclassical.com.

Thanks, Comments, Bibliography

This disc is dedicated to an unknown clerk in Tiffany & Co., Fifth Avenue. I cannot begin to thank adequately Stéphane Denève. It’s exhilarating to interview him and that exhilaration carried over into the preparation of this CD. The interview also gave me something distinct, and distinctly different than this would have been without it. Making a disc like this is always fun — he made it exciting. My review board came through. The interview editing was difficult as I had decided the interview itself would be ad libitum to keep it spontaneous. That meant that I was not as careful with editing the audio tracks as I should have been; it came from simple exhaustion. Al Lesitsky pointed out bad edits and I was then able to fix them all — or almost all. The recording that I had of the Morini/Stravinsky performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was so bad that it was almost unusable: in fact, the review board complained. Al got me out of the bind. Stacy Dutton helped me make

several passages clearer. I, alone, never would have noticed they were unclear. Al, Stan and Connie hadn’t noticed them either: one needs several pairs of ears. Stan Scordilis, professor that he is, provoked me into substantially ameliorating the elitist approach to my subjects with which this effort began. Thank goodness. And Connie — dragged to Saratoga and made to mind the dog; then endlessly requested to help me with this that or the other; and, finally, doing the graphics as well — I’m very fortunate. Finally, the interview with Stéphane Denève was recorded at Galileo Media Arts in Saratoga Springs, NY; their staff was more than helpful and accommodating: my grateful thanks and Stéphane’s, too. This cd had its genesis over the dinner table. Stéphane Denève was in town with his charming wife, Åsa. Connie and I were lucky enough to have them accept our invitation to un dîner en famille — meaning that one has to help. After a fair amount of food and a lot of wine, we were talking about the upcoming season. Stéphane said that he was going to conduct the Orchestra in Dumbarton Oaks in the late Winter. That launched us both into a rapturous duet on how wonderful the piece was. I said, “Well, if I keep doing cd’s next year, I’ll do one on the piece. I’ll come up to Saratoga to interview you about it.” And here it is. Great fun! I’d heard Stravinsky conduct. I’d seen him several times. I was there when he rehearsed the chorus and orchestra — directed by Robert Craft — for the premiere of Requiem Canticles. I loved his music. I’d studied the score of Le sacre. On April 6, 1971, I went into New York to buy an engagement ring for Connie. It was an awful day: a violent early Spring storm: wind, rain, snow. I walked into Tiffany’s empty Fifth Avenue store — no one wanted to be out on that day. I went to the engagement ring counter, square in the middle of the ground floor. The clerk came up to me. He said neither “Good afternoon”, nor “Isn’t the weather terrible”, nor even “What can I do for you”. He looked straight at me, and a little bit down, as he was taller than I, and, with a stricken look on his face, said: “I’ve just heard that Stravinsky has died”. I shall never forget it. A word on sources of recordings. If there is a Philadelphia Orchestra recording, I try to use it. If there is more than one, I try to use the most recent. If I don’t already own it, I try to buy it. If I can’t find it, Al Lesitsky probably has it. He has an amazing

collection. Audio recordings, old and new, are a tremendous resource. Let me give an example, leaving out some details on the principle of nihil nisi bonum. I wanted to use the de Falla Harpsichord Concerto. I remember hearing a wonderfully compelling and strongly neoclassical performance on the TV in the early 60’s. I found a recording that was nice, but not crisp enough to make the neoclassical nature jump out, perhaps not too useful as a pedagogical example. I asked my old friend, Teri Noel Towe, if Landowska had ever recorded it. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of this great performer. He said no, but that de Falla had. It didn’t take me long to locate a digital transfer of the recording, the 78’s not seeming to be readily available. It’s a fine performance, but has unfortunate sound. I suspect that too much noise was suppressed when the transfer was made. I then browsed through mp3 files on Spotify, Amazon, eClassical and Prestoclassical. I found the Tony Millan one which I purchased as a flac file: a good performance with a nice, clean sound. I have been a modest collector of records my whole life — or nearly so, I started when I was about twelve. The kind of search just described was all-consuming once, but the internet has made it easy. All of which is a long way to say that if you are interested in having some of these recordings, but can’t find them yourself, get in touch with me. I can almost certainly point you in the right direction.

A fair-sized library could be filled with books by and about Stravinsky. I’ve read a number over the years and, together, they’ve formed my opinions. This list is perhaps idiosyncratic, but here it is: Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography, M. & J. Steuer, New York, 1958; Igor Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1970; Robert Craft, Stravinsky, Chronicle of a Friendship, 1948/71, Knopf, New York, 1972; Robert Craft & Vera Stravinsky, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1978; Robert Craft, Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence, Edited and with Commentaries, Vol. II, Knopf, New York, 1984, Vol. III, Knopf, New York, 1985; Paul Horgan, Encounters with Stravinsky: A Personal Record, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, New York, 1972; Lillian Libman, And Music at the Close: Stravinsky’s Last Years, W. W. Norton, 1972; Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, a Biography of the Works Through Mavra, in two volumes, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996; Eric Walter White, Stravinsky, the Composer and His Works, 2nd ed., University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984; Scott Messing, Neoclassicism in Music from the Genesis of the Concept through the Schoenberg/Stravinsky Polemic, University of Rochester Press, Rochester, 1988. I’ve had frequent reference to the New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Stanley Sadie, ed., MacMillan, 1980; as I’ve written before, don’t leave Beethoven without it. A score was essential: Stravinsky, Dumbarton Oaks, Concerto in E♭, Edition Eulenburg, No. 1813. Finally, nothing of this sort is possible today without wikipedia.org and imslp.org. The first everybody knows, the second is a great place to find that public domain score that you need to check.

I would never have started this series were it not for the musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra. When I finished the first, Just listen to it!, they were supportive enough that I dared do a trial on Ravel’s lovely ballet Daphnis et Chloé. That worked out well and led to everything else. I can hear them whenever they play, and I can go backstage and talk to them if I wish, but I can’t hear what it is that you have to say. I’m dead serious about finding me at every Thursday night performance in seat K-101. If that doesn’t work, you can contact me through the Orchestra. I want to know what you think, how this series can be improved, what subjects you’d like to know more about, which composers fascinate you most. It’s all grist for my mill. Thanks for listening! Mike Cone