Re-coupled from decade-old recordings originally released on the Music Masters label, this 2006 disc of Stravinsky's sacred choral works led by Robert Craft is in its way as good as it gets for the music. The playing of New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's and London's Philharmonia Orchestra is colorful and strong. The singing of the Simon Joly Chorale and the Gregg Smith Singers is lovely and powerful. And the conducting of Robert Craft, Stravinsky's one-time amanuensis and general factotum, is wholly at one with the music. ...
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Re-coupled from decade-old recordings originally released on the Music Masters label, this 2006 disc of Stravinsky's sacred choral works led by Robert Craft is in its way as good as it gets for the music. The playing of New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's and London's Philharmonia Orchestra is colorful and strong. The singing of the Simon Joly Chorale and the Gregg Smith Singers is lovely and powerful. And the conducting of Robert Craft, Stravinsky's one-time amanuensis and general factotum, is wholly at one with the music. There's not a melody, a harmony, a rhythm, or a color in these scores that is not represented with absolute accuracy and complete fidelity.The real question is: how faithful is Craft to the meaning of the music? Stravinsky's sacred choral works, after all, are not his usual arch and ironic modernist constructions, but are instead more or less sincere attempts to embrace the faith of his Russian forbearers and any performance of them that doesn't accept and advocate for this aspect of...
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