Stravinsky Suita Italian

The second release from Katia and Marielle Labèque's own KML label largely revisits Debussy and Stravinsky works that the duo previously essayed for Philips. Their newer versions are preferable, and may well represent the Labèque sisters' finest recordings to date. Whereas a driving, steel-edged literalism characterizes their earlier Debussy En blanc et noir, the duo now imbues the score with greater rhythmic leeway.

The years have seen Pierre Boulez record for CBS, Erato, EMI, and Philips, among other labels, but his most consistent and critically praised work has appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, where he has conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and his own Ensemble InterContemporain in many successful performances. These ensembles are heard on this trimline, six-CD box set of Igor Stravinsky's major works, which brings together Boulez's recordings of L'oiseau de feu, Petrushka, Le Sacre du printemps, L'histoire du Soldat, the symphonies, concertos, and other works, recorded between 1980 and 1996. As one of the leading champions of modernism, first as a composer and essayist, then as a prominent conductor, Boulez is regarded as an authority on Stravinsky's oeuvre, and it is difficult to imagine many conductors who have a better understanding of the technical and stylistic issues that affect performances. Boulez is also famous for his precision and meticulousness, which make the details stand out clearly in the rhythmically complex and texturally dense orchestral scores of the ballets, and yet seem so delicate and exact in the concertos and pieces for smaller ensembles.

Grumiaux' version remains to this day one of the best available. He and Markevitch conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw have a total mastery of the idiom, and the Concerto's sections unfold naturally and organically: it doesn't sound like "modern" music, but as a language entirely congenial to the performers. Tempos are middle-of-the road, close to the metronome marks, and nothing more is required to bring out the composition's searing lyricism. Grumiaux has a luminous tone, the perfect mix of radiant lyricism and despaired vehemence. Markevitch, the Concertgebouw Orchestra (glorious brass!) and the sonic engineers bring out a wealth of orchestral details from Berg's subtle and delicately intertwined textures, maybe not as much as the best modern versions

Why this superb recording has not garnered more attention is amazing: it is one of the very finest selections and performances of lesser-known but brilliant works by Stravinsky. Recorded in the terrific acoustic of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall (the home of the Aldeburgh Festival) in 1988, these delights are performed by Stravinsky specialist pianist Paul Crossley with the firm support of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the London Sinfonietta.

The Sixteen, bright stars of the Baroque, have plenty to say on 20th-century repertoire (witness their excellent Britten series on Collins). Underpin them with the BBC Philharmonic and it might seem a magic formula. Ives’s unearthly The Unanswered Question holds few problems for instrumental players weaned on Maxwell Davies – no more than do the brilliant wind roulades of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Deft BBC teamwork and a chamber articulation to woodwind and brass helps this Koussevitzky-commissioned masterpiece to shed its often hammy ‘big band’ sound, creeping closer to the subtle, leaner sonorities of his later choral works. It gains. The singing varies. Too many dynamic shifts sound prosaic or under-prepared; fortes are forced, with muddy results. The vocal blend (happier in lower voices) can seem haphazard and colours the Tippett, where the men’s roars – contrast the lovely, sensual soprano solo – seem crude. Get this disc, instead, for the rare, late Poulenc – his New York-commissioned Sept répons. It is a curiously under-recorded devotional work, bleeding with pathos yet pumping energy, its exoticism enhanced by slightly breathy, tender solos, and scintillatingly sung with just those crucial missing qualities of awe and freshness. A million times more refined than what goes before.