Igor Stravinsky: The New Stravinsky (Columbia)
Purchased at the Jerry's Records dollar sale
Another Duquesne album bought up by Jerry's, now down to $1. For Stravinsky? It seems disrespectful.
A Stravinsky LP from 1970, with pieces dating from 1965-1966. Igor was in his early sixties at the time, so not young but hardly old either.
There's a question about how much Stravinsky really heard and felt his later music, because he started adopting twelve-tone techniques. The first work on this album, the brief "Orchestra Variations" is an example. I guess it doesn't sound like classic Stravinsky, but something about even these later works that still have a Stravinsky flavor. I'd still rather listen to them than his seriously neoclassical works.
Most of the first side is taken up with "Abraham and Isaac (A Sacred Ballad for Baritone and Chamber Orchestra)". I've made this point before here, but I'm not a fan of the broad, heavy-vibrato operatic style used when singing 20th century works. I just can't hear it, in the sense of I just don't know where the pitch is.
Far preferable is the second side, taken up by "Requiem Canticles" for choir, vocal soloists, and orchestra. It sounds as though it could be more neoclassicism, but in fact comes closer in sound to me like more typical Stravinsky. Maybe there's some pitch and interval organization, I don't know, it just has more of that Stravinsky sound. Another requiem too, hmm...I might have to study this one more.
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