Solacium

Works of Igor Stravinsky is a massive set: 22 CDs of performances of Rite of Spring, Petrouschka, L'Histoire du soldat, Symphony in E-Flat, The Rake's Progress and more under the direction of the composer, with additional performances by his disciple Robert Craft under Stravinsky's supervision, and a disc (the Sympony in E-Flat disc, actually) that includes recordings of rehearsals and Stravinsky discussing his own music.

The exquisitely decorated 15th century choir book known as the Old Hall manuscript was lost to history for the best part of 400 years until its reappearance in a Catholic seminary at the end of the 19th century. The largest surviving collection of medieval motets and mass movements, it immediately became the most celebrated source of English music of the period. It was written in the first instance by a single scribe to ensure that the music of his fellow singers was not forgotten. Many of them are known only from this manuscript, and on this album they find their voices again after more than half a millennium of silence, transformed by the singing of Trio Mediæval in the company of Catalina Vicens, alongside new music by David Lang and Marianne Reidarsdatter Eriksen.

Threni (1957-58) is his longest, most ambitious and complex dodecaphonic score, and probably one of its summits. A work like the Requiem Canticles (1966) goes even further in this direction: the composer’s last masterpiece, it seems to summarise in itself the evolution of an entire lifetime, combining elements from the different stylistic periods that punctuated his career – whilst marking a highpoint in the spiritual quest that became increasingly important in Stravinsky’s life. In this major album, Philippe Herreweghe reveals with conviction his love for the composer’s music, and under his sure, inspired direction, the Collegium Vocale Gent and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic reveal their pure poetry.