- Audio CD (13 Jun 1994)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Warner
- ASIN: B000005J2L
- Other Editions: Audio Cassette | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 238,945 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
Jubilee Offer: Patriotic Classics for £2.50 |
Product details |
Track Listings
| 1. Play, Skomoroshek |
| 2. River |
| 3. Trumpet |
| 4. Les noces |
| 5. Les noces |
| 6. Les Noces |
| 7. Les noces |
| 8. Cosmas And Demian |
| 9. The Drinker |
| 10. Green Forest |
| 11. God Bless, Jesus |
| 12. My White Peas |
| 13. Steambath |
| 14. Berry |
| 15. Black Beaver |
| 16. In The House |
| 17. Bunny With Short Legs |
| 18. The Bed |
| 19. Birch Tree |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is a quite breathtaking CD. Pokrovsky uses skilfully chosen Russian singers to create an authentic folk sound. That sound is then used to stunning effect in 'Les Noces' which achieves a vibrancy unlike any performance I have ever heard. I would recommend this CD to anyone who enjoys the music of Stravinsky's "Russian period". What's more, the genuine Russian wedding songs which frame 'Les Noces' place it firmly in its social and aesthetic context in a unique way.
Although the computer controlled pianos lack a little of the bell-like resonance I think the composer wanted at the end of the piece, they also add a tempered sense of mechanical urgency to the rough and joyful voices.
On the whole - you must buy this CD!
Although the computer controlled pianos lack a little of the bell-like resonance I think the composer wanted at the end of the piece, they also add a tempered sense of mechanical urgency to the rough and joyful voices.
On the whole - you must buy this CD!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is an infuriating disc, and I honestly don't know how to rate it.
The sound of these raucous, rough, spunky voices singing Les Noces is one of the wonders of my listening life so far - from now on, this is the only way I'll hear Les Noces sung in my head. It brings something completely ageless to the piece and moved me to tears. Extraordinary. And it's all at something like Stravinsky's tempi (which other recordings usually fall quite short of). The Russian is loose and raw with flattened vowels, which, though maybe not "high" Russian, makes it totally comprehensible and clear. On many of the recordings I've heard, I have to listen to quite some time before I can work out if they're singing in Russian, English or French....
But the logic of tying a vocal performance of such life and energy to a MIDI sampling of the pianos and percussion is just perverse. Whoever produced this disc has shot themselves in the foot in a big way. It drives me out of my mind. The electronic pianos and especially the electronic snare drums sound dead dead dead and you can spot them a mile away. I find it difficult to listen to all the way through. Was it really going to bankrupt the ensemble to pay for 10 players, piano hire and a couple of rehearsals?! How much did they have to pay someone to sequence the whole thing?
The whole piece is presented without any dynamic variety. The vocal balance is over-engineered and certain groups are suddenly brought to the front or turned right down for no apparent reason. It is all sung forte - OK, if you're using "folky" voices, this goes with the territory to some extent - and was almost certainly recorded in tiny tiny snippets.
So - 6/5 for the new life these guys have brought to the singing of Les Noces. The voices sound elemental, amazing, and it'll change what you thought of the piece. But 0/5 for the cackhanded decision to turn the surging, thrashing ensemble into a series of ones and zeros before the microphones get into the room. On balance, buy the record as your second Les Noces. The thought that this ensemble were so close to producing what would have been the perfect Les Noces by a country mile, but then scored an epic own goal with this MIDI nonsense breaks my heart.
The sound of these raucous, rough, spunky voices singing Les Noces is one of the wonders of my listening life so far - from now on, this is the only way I'll hear Les Noces sung in my head. It brings something completely ageless to the piece and moved me to tears. Extraordinary. And it's all at something like Stravinsky's tempi (which other recordings usually fall quite short of). The Russian is loose and raw with flattened vowels, which, though maybe not "high" Russian, makes it totally comprehensible and clear. On many of the recordings I've heard, I have to listen to quite some time before I can work out if they're singing in Russian, English or French....
But the logic of tying a vocal performance of such life and energy to a MIDI sampling of the pianos and percussion is just perverse. Whoever produced this disc has shot themselves in the foot in a big way. It drives me out of my mind. The electronic pianos and especially the electronic snare drums sound dead dead dead and you can spot them a mile away. I find it difficult to listen to all the way through. Was it really going to bankrupt the ensemble to pay for 10 players, piano hire and a couple of rehearsals?! How much did they have to pay someone to sequence the whole thing?
The whole piece is presented without any dynamic variety. The vocal balance is over-engineered and certain groups are suddenly brought to the front or turned right down for no apparent reason. It is all sung forte - OK, if you're using "folky" voices, this goes with the territory to some extent - and was almost certainly recorded in tiny tiny snippets.
So - 6/5 for the new life these guys have brought to the singing of Les Noces. The voices sound elemental, amazing, and it'll change what you thought of the piece. But 0/5 for the cackhanded decision to turn the surging, thrashing ensemble into a series of ones and zeros before the microphones get into the room. On balance, buy the record as your second Les Noces. The thought that this ensemble were so close to producing what would have been the perfect Les Noces by a country mile, but then scored an epic own goal with this MIDI nonsense breaks my heart.
Format:Audio CD
This is perhaps the best recording of Les Noces that I have ever heard, and that includes the Bernstein recording (which I do find hard to write). The careful research that Dmitri Pokrovsky carried out before entering the studio shines through and makes for a vibrancy rarely captured in studio-recorded music. The liner notes are first class. The English translation of Stravinsky's Russian text is vibrant and brings out both the bawdiness as well as tragi-comic elements of the text which in parts are really quite shocking. Pity the bride in such wedding rituals!
I disagree with one of the reviewers about the sequencing of the pianos on an Apple Macintosh. Stravinsky was fascinated with mechanical pianos and wanted to score Les Noces with pianolas rather than pianos played by actual pianists. He would have done so had the performance difficulties not been so great (how do you keep the pianolas, the chorus, soloists and all the acoustic instruments in time?). In his autobiography, he certainly declared that he wanted to "prevent distortions of my compositions by my future interpreters'. So would Stravinsky have approved of MIDI, sequencing and sampled instruments? I think he would have been fascinated by the technology, and had computers been available in the 1920s, I feel sure he would have found a way to use them.
So, in my book, full marks to the Pokrovsky Ensemble for so successfully interpreting this work in the spirit of the composer's own wishes and for producing such an outstanding result.
I disagree with one of the reviewers about the sequencing of the pianos on an Apple Macintosh. Stravinsky was fascinated with mechanical pianos and wanted to score Les Noces with pianolas rather than pianos played by actual pianists. He would have done so had the performance difficulties not been so great (how do you keep the pianolas, the chorus, soloists and all the acoustic instruments in time?). In his autobiography, he certainly declared that he wanted to "prevent distortions of my compositions by my future interpreters'. So would Stravinsky have approved of MIDI, sequencing and sampled instruments? I think he would have been fascinated by the technology, and had computers been available in the 1920s, I feel sure he would have found a way to use them.
So, in my book, full marks to the Pokrovsky Ensemble for so successfully interpreting this work in the spirit of the composer's own wishes and for producing such an outstanding result.
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