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Rating: Ok, let me get comfortable writing a rather challenging review. However, I warn you that this is a double review, and I recommend reading it one piece at a time, not all at once, unless after a short break. And that's advice I would also extend regarding listening to the two works.
This is because it's about describing in words two of the greatest masterpieces classical orchestral music has ever known. In this album, the performance by the Metropolitan Orchestra conducted by James Levine is, in my humble opinion, impressive for its intensity and dynamics. But let's proceed in order.
"Mussorgsky (Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition"
This work was initially written by Modest Mussorgsky for solo piano. No one to this day understands how the Russian author, one of the most underrated and unfortunate, managed to write in the mid-nineteenth century a score (slightly tweaked by Rimsky Korsakov, as it has come down to us) so revolutionary, both rhythmically and harmonically. Indeed, the pictures at an exhibition would later be the starting point for all subsequent experimenters of new pianistic expressive solutions (Debussy first and foremost). This immense score was tackled by Maurice Ravel, a French school author from the first half of the 20th century, who, without changing a single note, focused more on the orchestral rendition and the timbral coloring to "paint" to achieve a work that didn't suffer at all from this transcription, certainly not an easy task. The result and the success of this work were such as to overshadow all other works by the French composer (so much so that today he's only known for the pictures and the bolero, wrongly). The shrewdness of Ravel, in my opinion, was to build a perfect bridge between the French impressionistic tradition, characterized by the elegant flow of sounds and soft colors, and the roaring timbral and rhythmic charge of clear Russian matrix.
And this is what we can appreciate in "Pictures at an Exhibition". Already in the promenade, chills start, with that intro (that harmonic phrasing which then repeats itself several times, but always differently) entrusted to the trumpet, which seems to come from very far away to capture the ears on a sonic journey of unique value. In “Gnomus” the dark atmospheres suddenly prevail over the overture, and here the orchestra expresses itself in all its power with mighty volume changes. After a brilliant pause where we hear the initial theme again, whispered by the winds, we move to “The Old Castle,” and here the impressionistic charge of the piece makes us imagine one of those estates, abandoned in the middle of the Prussian steppes. I have no words to describe this slow andante. Listen to it.
The beauty of the late-romantic tonality is expressed in all its maximum splendor. Another brief intermezzo, and we move to “Tuileries,” which for the piano certainly constituted one of the most technical moments. Here you can hear the influence of the French school, with the woodwinds in great prominence. “Bydlo” is a powerful march, full of pathos. Once again, great orchestral performance (somewhat resembles Tchaikovsky's orchestra) and great interpretation by Levine. Yet another transformation of the initial theme, always changeable and this time dramatic, leads us to a ballet, with a chase between the winds. The result is impressive: a piece of great difficulty, demonstrating how with talent, one can make virtuosity appear light to the listener's ears.
"“Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuyle“, with a powerful string introduction, then evolves into an andante where the trumpet emulates the piano feats of Mussorgsky. And then again, that string outburst and the volume rising and the trumpet seeming to want to rise above the orchestra." “Limoges” fully exploits all timbral, rhythmic, and technical possibilities (listen to the finale): it's a climax, a fugue that flows seamlessly into the following “Catacombae”… apocalyptic the intro for brass alone, with a progression of almost medieval flavor. “Con Mortuis in lingua morta” has a strong Tchaikovskian drama, almost a pathetic symphony. But it's only a scrap of reflection because then one heads towards the final orchestral rush, with “The Hut on Fowl's Legs,” and here Ravel conjures up all sorts of colors (timbral). You can feel the lesson of Stravinsky, as well as that of Debussy. Already the finale of the piano piece was quite complex to perform, imagine for an orchestra… And so we arrive at the closing piece, “The Great Gate of Kiev,” a celebration of the initial phrasing, now shouted with the power of a hundred or more instruments. To remember halfway through the piece with bell tolls marking the religious rhythm, while everyone prepares for the finale, of indescribable pathos and intensity, among echoes of brass, the flowering of strings, and the gong that closes this circus of wonders. To conclude and describe Ravel's work, I would say that this composer could be defined as a polyglot of the orchestral language, escaping real classification for the variety of genres and schools touched. So much so that shortly afterward, he would express his opinion on the jazz contamination in classical music (and we're just at the beginning of the 1930s).
“Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps
Let's imagine entering the midst of a crowd of onlookers, on a warm Parisian evening, at the doors of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, on May 29, 1913. Inside the hall, there's a modest discussion about current topics, but a certain tension is noticeable. There is no enthusiasm for the show that's about to be staged. It is the third gigantic work by Igor Stravinsky. Many after “The Firebird” had called him the heir to Tchaikovsky. Everyone after Petrushka had withdrawn the offer, aware that this young student of Rimsky had been able to develop a sound language all his own. Now they are all there. Prejudiced by the negative reviews of the best critics of the capital, filled with the most conservative viewpoint, while they sternly await an already announced failure. The reception is cold: the Russian composer enters the theater under a very light trickle of applause. We are in a period of confusion: it is unclear whether music should take its steps towards polyphonic avant-garde and the most disparate contaminations, or whether it should hide behind the veil of the Russian tonal school and the now abused late-romantic rhetoric.
Well. After this work's release, music will decide where to go. And while the first runs of the winds sneak into the ears of the reluctant listeners, it's like observing a Kandinsky painting, with its irregular lines, its jarring colors, its convulsive images. A broken rhythm. And the rhythm of the work truly gets broken by whistles, insults, mocking applause from those who are not ready to listen. The work is dismissed by the crowd, even the most cultured one. The musicians cannot continue their performance, they stop. They stare incredulously at the enraged spectators. Stravinsky leaves the hall furiously. He will say later, with a certain presumptuous pride that befits him: “We composers have a moral duty towards music: to create it”. Indeed, he created these “Scenes of Pagan Russia in Two Parts”, from nothing.
The influences of the Parisian school, first present in his two previous works, are now mere citations. The truth is that "Le Sacre" has its own language, its own grammar, its own syntax, its own semantics, unique in its kind. All new elements to which Stravinsky manages to give a sense, profoundly. The sense is to describe the rurality of the Russian countryside, filled with myths, demons, pagan rites, mysteries, blood. And it is so that he explores the musical universe of Russian tradition, its songs, its polyphonies, and elevates it to orchestral language. And it is so that to describe the frenzied dance of two virgins destined for death, Stravinsky draws rhythms sometimes tribal, changing, snippets of counterpoint that suddenly stop to leave space for other rhythmic flames, to other disharmonic cells. The strings are stripped of their tonal role and are used for percussive purposes. The brass and winds intermingle, come close and move away, as in the introduction to the first act, where the bassoon sinuously crawls over a tonality, only to abandon it and let itself be carried away by the other winds sneaking in.
And what about the finale? That agonizing and strident flight that suddenly breaks to mark the end of the work. And in between, there are those episodes sometimes violent, sometimes almost anticipatory of psychedelia and hallucinatory instrumental stasis. And if you haven't grasped the sense of the description, listen to “the Introduction to the Second Act”. Or when the gates of hell seem to open, with that roll of drums and that madly tooting brass, in the “Earth's Dance”. And again: “The Dance of the Adolescents”, with the strings almost stupidly hammering the air, while the pentatonics stolen from the peasant tonal tradition flow freely, freeing themselves from any pre-established tonal harmony.
“Glorification of the Chosen One”, perhaps the most violent piece, where the orchestra becomes onomatopoeic. “Ritual Action of the Ancestors” in which Stravinsky seems to want to recreate the fear seen in the eyes of the peasants, all those atavistic anxieties that create a cycle in our minds and sometimes lead us to perform embarrassing and violent actions, dark and desecrating rites. “The Rite of Spring” is the first true avant-garde work of the 20th century, and perhaps the most successful. But it will not be easy for anyone to listen to it, especially the first few times. It demands attention and care similar to what you would dedicate to a Kubrick film. It demands patience and care. After which, you'll love it. Or you'll hate it.
Like on that warm evening, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, next to a tall, bespectacled gentleman who stands up and exclaims: “This is a labyrinth of disjointed sounds!” .
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