Been having a bit of a Stravinsky week, following a recent re-broadcast of the concert below. But first, here's a great little record by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which features one of the composer's later works. Agon, completed in 1957, is a single-act ballet that dates from Stravinsky's late period when he started getting into twelve-tone rows. It still features his flair for bold rhythms, loads of wild colour in the strings and brass, and has neat little solos for mandolin. Reminded me of orchestral Zappa more than once, and really shows Stravinsky's influence on him.
Agon is paired on this album with Seven Studies On Themes Of Paul Klee (1959) by Gunter Schuller (1925-2015). As well as a composer, Schuller was a jazz musician, playing on one of the Birth Of The Cool sessions, and doing occasional conducting of Mingus' work; Schuller is credited with coining the term "third stream" for the confluence of jazz and classical music, even if the concept itself dated back to Gershwin's time.
Schuller's seven representations of Klee paintings in music range from dense, dramatic orchestration in Antique Harmonies and An Eerie Moment, to outright jazz stylings in Little Blue Devil, to plain weirdness - The Twittering Machine sounds like an avant-garde cut-up of a Woody Woodpecker cartoon soundtrack. Lots of fun.
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bonus Stravinsky - conducted by Simon Rattle
A concert broadcast from September 2017 at the Barbican, London, in which Sir Simon Rattle took the LSO through Stravinsky's legendary breakthrough ballets Firebird, Petrushka and Rite Of Spring in a single evening. Exhilarating stuff, expertly executed.
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