Stravinsky - Persephone | Pentatone PTC5186688

Stravinsky - Persephone

£15.15

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Label: Pentatone

Cat No: PTC5186688

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 17th August 2018

Contents

Artists

Andrew Staples (tenor)
Pauline Cheviller (speaker)
Orchestra, Chorus & Children’s Chorus of Finnish National Opera

Conductor

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Works

Stravinsky, Igor

Persephone

Artists

Andrew Staples (tenor)
Pauline Cheviller (speaker)
Orchestra, Chorus & Children’s Chorus of Finnish National Opera

Conductor

Esa-Pekka Salonen

About

Stravinsky’s Perséphone (1934) is a dynamic music-theatrical narration of the myth of Persephone’s abduction to the underworld and return to earth. The transparent, sober but evocative music epitomizes Stravinsky’s sensuous take on Neoclassicism, and the piece showcases Stravinsky’s eclectic, original and highly personal approach to music and musical drama through a playful mixture of several genres – melodrama, song, chorus, dance and pantomime. Ultimately, Perséphone offers Stravinsky’s second ode to spring, albeit without the brutal excesses of Le Sacre.

This album was recorded live during the Helsinki Festival 2017 with a star cast featuring English tenor Andrew Staples and French actress Pauline Cheviller. They join forces with the Finnish National Opera’s chorus, children’s chorus and orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, in a breath-taking performance that brings out the piece’s transformative power.

Reviews

Orchestral textures are clean yet sensuous, rhythms exactingly precise. The instrumental solos, sometimes twining round the voices like obbligatos, sometimes carrying the narrative forwards, are all beautifully done. In lesser hands, the score can seem episodic. Salonen, however, forges it into a unified drama, in which not a note or word seems wasted. ... this is an exceptional achievement, and the best recording of Perséphone that I know.  Tim Ashley
Gramophone October 2018
Gramophone Editor's Choice

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