Difficult to pigeonhole, Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat has had a varied performance history, as several versions have emphasized different aspects of the work. It is most frequently played in concert as a chamber suite for septet, and it has been performed with choreography as a ballet, though it is increasingly given in its original form as a theater piece with a narrator and two actors. This 2018 Harmonia Mundi release by violinist Olivier Charlier and Ensemble Instrumental, under the direction of Jean-Christophe ...
Read More
Difficult to pigeonhole, Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat has had a varied performance history, as several versions have emphasized different aspects of the work. It is most frequently played in concert as a chamber suite for septet, and it has been performed with choreography as a ballet, though it is increasingly given in its original form as a theater piece with a narrator and two actors. This 2018 Harmonia Mundi release by violinist Olivier Charlier and Ensemble Instrumental, under the direction of Jean-Christophe Gayot, presents it in French, and features Didier Sandre as the Narrator, Denis Podalydès as the Soldier, and Michel Vuillermoz as the Devil. The performance was recorded at Studio Sequenza in Montreuil as a straightforward reading without staging. As a result, the music and the spoken parts take on a rather detached character, reinforcing the parable nature of the work, though the close miking gives the sound an airless quality that lends the performance a certain dryness. While...
Read Less