Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; The Nightingale.

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; The Nightingale. Olga Trifonova, soprano; Robert Tear, tenor; et al. Robert Craft, London Symphony and Philharmonia Orchestra. Naxos 8.557501.

I didn't care overmuch for Robert Craft's conducting of Stravinsky's Firebird, issued by Naxos a few months earlier, but I found his Rite of Spring more to my liking. Craft is a noted expert in things Stravinsky, having been a close friend of the composer and a co-conductor on occasion. Still, that doesn't mean we're all going to warm to his interpretations.

While Craft seemed almost lackadaisical in his conducting of The Firebird, he seems positively energized in The Rite of Spring, if anything zipping through it at too hurried a clip. I compared his timing with several other conductors, Solti and Colin Davis among them, and found Craft a full five minutes faster through a work usually lasting little more than thirty-five minutes. Nevertheless, the quick tempo adds a degree of tension to the music that is most exhilarating, and it does little harm to the basic story idea. I also enjoyed the coupling of Stravinsky's complete one-act opera The Nightingale, although I am more keen on the music alone than on much of the rather static singing.

The sound, recorded in 1995 with the LSO for The Rite of Spring and in 1997 with the Philharmonia for The Nightingale, varies only slightly from one work to the next. The Rite seems cleaner and stronger, the Nightingale smoother and softer. In louder passages there is a touch of stridency, but it's nothing really. The bass line in the Rite is strong if not particularly deep. As a master conductor is at the helm of both these pieces, it's hard to argue the worth of this bargain-priced disc.