Early 20th century project: Some composers
Stravinsky: The Great Ballets: Firebird, Petroshka, Rite of Spring (Haitink/London Philharmonic), Apollo (Markevitch/London Symphony)
The riot was Nijinsky’s fault. Stravinsky’s work is continuous with the classical tradition — no less a populist than Disney knew this. What’s worth celebrating about Stravinsky is the way he uses rhythm. We populists are down with the beat as liberation, though Stravinsky addressed the dangers of this more than most. He makes the drama of the beat explicit.
Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande (Roger Desormiere); Orchestral Music (Haitink/van Beinum/Concertgebouw); Preludes, Books 1 & 2 (Krystian Zimerman)
Debussy was nothing if not versatile, in moods as well as forms. The Preludes show off all kinds of different ideals of beauty, cerebral and spiritual and erotic (what, you don’t think “La Fille aux cheveux de lin” is wet-dreamy?) Of the rest, my favourite is the mythology-free La Mer. How much worse would movie soundtracks be without him?
Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier highlights (Haitink/Dresden)
Strauss loved to torture tenors, but it’s better for everyone when he writes his male lead for a woman.
Bartok: The 6 String Quartets (Emerson Quartet)
Number four, with its slap-happy allegretto pizzicato, and number five, arched around the Bulgarian-timed scherzo, are the essentials.
