557504 bk Stravinsky US_9x_557504 bk Stravinsky US 05/07/2018 11:29 Page 12 Also available in this series: STRAVINSKY Symphony of Psalms Three Russian Sacred Choruses 8.557501 8.557502 Mass • Cantata • Babel So loists Orchestra of St. Luke’s The Simon Joly Chorale The Gregg Smith Singers 8.557503 Philharmonia Orchestra 8.557504 12 Robert Craft 557504 bk Stravinsky US_9x_557504 bk Stravinsky US 05/07/2018 11:29 Page 2 THE ROBERT CRAFT COLLECTION audiences worldwide, and to using new technologies to achieve this. Many millions of people since 1945 have THE MUSIC OF IGOR STRAVINSKY, Vol. 6 enjoyed their first experience of classical music through a Philharmonia recording, and now audiences can engage with the Orchestra through webcasts, podcasts, downloads, computer games and film scores as well as through its Robert Craft, Conductor unique interactive music education website launched in 2005, The Sound Exchange ( www.philharmonia.co.uk/ thesoundexchange ). In 2005 the Philharmonia became the first ever classical music organisation to be shortlisted for 1 Three Russian Sacred Choruses 4:45 a BT Digital Music Award, and in the same year the Orchestra presented both the first ever fully interactive webcast 2 Otche Nash (Pater Noster) (1926) 1:23 and the first podcast by a British orchestra. In September 2005 computer games with Philharmonia scores were at 3 Ave Maria (1934) 1:04 No. 1 and No. 2 in the national charts, while the Orchestra’s scores for the last two Harry Potter computer games Credo (1932) 2:17 have both been nominated for BAFTA Awards. CD recording and live broadcasting both also continue to play a The Gregg Smith Singers significant part in the Orchestra’s activities: since 2003 the Philharmonia has enjoyed a major partnership with Classic FM, as The Classic FM Orchestra on Tour, as well as continuing to broadcast on BBC Radio 3. 4 Mass (1944-48) 17:09 5 Kyrie 2:37 Robert Craft Gloria 3:56 6 Robert Craft, the noted conductor and widely respected writer and critic on music, literature, and culture, holds a 7 Credo 4:25 unique place in world music of today. He is in the process of recording the complete works of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, 8 Sanctus 3:17 and Webern for Naxos. He has twice won the Grand Prix du Disque as well as the Edison Prize for his landmark Agnus Dei 2:55 recordings of Schoenberg, Webern, and Varèse. He has also received a special award from the American Academy and The Gregg Smith Singers • Orchestra of St. Luke’s National Institute of Arts and Letters in recognition of his “creative work” in literature. In 2002 he was awarded the International Prix du Disque Lifetime Achievement Award, Cannes Music Festival. Cantata for 5 instruments, female chorus, Robert Craft has conducted and recorded with most of the world’s major orchestras in the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. He is the first American to have conducted 9 mezzo-soprano and tenor (1951-52) 23:46 A Lyke-Wake Dirge (Versus I; Prelude) 1:32 Berg’s Wozzeck and Lulu , and his original Webern album enabled music lovers to become acquainted with this 0 composer’s then little-known music. He led the world premières of Stravinsky’s later masterpieces: In Memoriam: Ricercar I: “The Maidens Came” * 4:04 ! Dylan Thomas , Vom Himmel hoch , Agon , The Flood , Abraham and Isaac , Variations , Introitus , and Requiem A Lyke-Wake Dirge (Versus II; 1st Interlude) 1:35 @ † Canticles . Craft’s historic association with Igor Stravinsky, as his constant companion, co-conductor, and musical # Ricercar II: “Tomorrow Shall Be” 10:42 confidant, over a period of more than twenty years, contributed to his understanding of the composer’s intentions in the $ A Lyke-Wake Dirge (Versus III; 2nd Interlude) 1:33 performance of his music. He remains the primary source for our perspectives on Stravinsky’s life and work. † % Westron Wind * 2:07 In addition to his special command of Stravinsky’s and Schoenberg’s music, Robert Craft is well known for his A Lyke-Wake Dirge (Versus IV; Postlude) 2:14 recordings of works by Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Schütz, Bach, and Mozart. He is also the author of more than two dozen † books on music and the arts, including the highly acclaimed Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship ; The Moment of * Mary Ann Hart, mezzo-soprano • Thomas Bogdan, tenor • Fred Sherry, Cello • Stephen Taylor, Oboe Existence: Music, Literature and the Arts, 1990–1995 ; Places: A Travel Companion for Music and Art Lovers ; Melanie Field, Cor Anglais and Oboe • Michael Parloff and Bart Feller, Flutes • The Gregg Smith Singers An Improbable Life: Memoirs; Memories and Commentaries ; and the forthcoming “ Down a Path of Wonder”: ^ Babel (1944) 4:57 On Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Eliot, Auden, and Some Others (2005) . He lives in Florida and New York. David Wilson-Johnson, narrator • Simon Joly Chorale • Philharmonia Orchestra & Symphony of Psalms (1930, rev. 1948) 22:25 * Psalm 38, verses 13 and 14 3:35 ( Psalm 39, verses 1 to 5 7:12 Psalm 150 (entire) 11:38 Simon Joly Chorale • Philharmonia Orchestra 8.557504 2 11 8.557504 557504 bk Stravinsky US_9x_557504 bk Stravinsky US 05/07/2018 11:29 Page 10 Simon Joly Chorale Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Three Russian Sacred Choruses • Mass • Cantata • Babel • Symphony of Psalms Handpicked by Simon Joly from the finest professional singers in London, the Simon Joly Chorale is one of three select choral groups formed by him for the specific purpose needed by each event. Simon Joly has used each group The texts of the three Russian Sacred Choruses , Pater He signally failed in this aim in these two movements, to provide the choral element in many of Robert Craft’s recordings, from the chamber forces of Schoenberg’s Die noster, Ave Maria and Credo , are in Slavonic. They are but in the solo parts, especially in the Gloria, composed glückliche Hand , through Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms , to the huge chorus for Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder . He intended to be used in the liturgy of the Russian the work’s most beautiful music. has also trained choruses for several other eminent musicians who have included Pierre Boulez, for his recordings of Orthodox Church, which forbids the participation of The centrepiece of the work, the Credo , is the one Webern’s Cantatas and a cappella music of Schoenberg (the BBC Singers), Leonard Bernstein’s prize-winning musical instruments. The first piece is a chant, the non-antiphonal, non-polyphonic movement. Here the recording of Candide and several recordings and concerts for Claudio Abbado with the London Symphony Chorus. second a melody in the Phrygian mode, the third a chant text determined the musical scheme. The piece is a in falso bordone; in 1964 Stravinsky recomposed the chant, falso bordone, and here alone the rôle of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s music of the Credo, parsing the rhythms into barred instruments is traditionally accompanimental. It units. For a 1929 Latin version he first heard the music provides pitches, rhythms, brief passages of The Orchestra of St. Luke’s is America’s foremost and most versatile chamber orchestra. Formed at the Caramoor in Paris in 1934 in a memorial service for Samuel counterpoint, and brief moments of respiration. International Music Festival in the summer of 1979, the orchestra evolved from the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Dushkin’s patron, Blair Fairchild. Nevertheless, and despite the built-in monotony of the which was established in 1974, with Ensemble members forming the orchestra’s artistic core as principal players. Stravinsky’s Mass is the most perfectly sustained in rhythm, Stravinsky manages to endow the music with The Ensemble and the Orchestra still co-exist today, and the collaborative chamber aesthetic that is the St. Luke’s its musical emotion of the creations from his first form. Toward the end the quiet chanting becomes louder hallmark has resulted in consistent critical acclaim, both for mastery of a diverse repertoire spanning the Baroque to decade in America, even though he interrupted work on and expands upward in range to a climax which is the contemporary, and for vibrant music-making of the highest order. In addition to the three-concert series it for four years between the initial two movements and prolonged by a forte fermata. The next bar returns presented by Carnegie Hall in the Isaac Stern Auditorium, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s participates in such Carnegie the final three. Part of the explanation for this could be briefly to the beginning, a stunning effect comparable to Hall events as the Choral Workshop and Carnegie Family Concerts. The orchestra is engaged throughout the year in that unlike all of his other music of the period it is an the return of the first theme in a sonata movement. The a number of artistic collaborations with other New York City cultural organizations, and serves each summer as the ancient ritual, sung in Latin, deeply rooted in medieval Amen which concludes the piece is detached from it by a Orchestra-in-Residence at the Caramoor Festival. The orchestra has an extensive discography that includes three chant and Byzantine design, and free of any American slower tempo, a return to a cappella polyphony and to Grammy Award winning recordings. influence. In other respects, sonority, harmony, and pianissimo. Througout the Mass, the word takes priority rhythm, completely new. over the music. Here one feels truly that “In the Philharmonia Orchestra The division of the instrumental accompaniment beginning was the Word.” into a quintet of oboes and bassoons and a quintet of This architectural guide to a musical masterpiece The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the world’s great orchestras.