Igor Markevitch Conducts = SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 3 in D Major, D. 200; FALLA: El sombrero de tres picos: 3 Dances; ROUSSEL: Bacchus et Ariane, Op. 43–Suite No. 2; MUSSORGSKY: 6 Lieder (arr. Markevitch) – Mascia Predit, soprano/RIAS Symphonie Orchestra/Igor Markevitch
Audite 95.631, 75:44 [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
Igor Markevitch (1912-1983), sometimes known as “the second Igor” after Stravinsky, commanded respect both as composer and conductor, and Bartok admitted that Markevitch’s experiments in quarter-tonality had influenced his own musical experiments. This Audite collection of RIAS concerts opens with Markevitch leading the Schubert Third Symphony (2 March 1953) with the deliberate clarity that marked his style, whether in the music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, or Mozart. The Markevitch approach, much in anticipation of Gallic colleagues Martinon and Boulez, could “deconstruct” a score, much in the manner of the mathematician’s series of postulates. But attached to the Markevitch intellectual scalpel was a driving, often explosively exciting sense of rhythm, a verve-driven clarity that illuminated any music under his scrutiny. The Schubert moves fleetly, a direct, unsentimental realization with keen, quick reflexes. The textural clarity and precision of the playing only strengthens our appreciation of Schubert’s color spectrum. A suave, galant Allegretto proceeds to Haydnesque, slightly pomposo Menuetto, athletically graceful. The vivacious Presto vivace moves like diaphanous lightning; and even so, we feel that Markevitch still holds back what might have erupted into a whirlwind.
Music of Spain always figured large in the Markevitch lexicon: he launched the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra, often performing Falla, Granados, and various entries of zarzuela. The studio recording of excerpts from The Three-Cornered Hat (27 February 1953) balances the exotic color and sensuality of Falla’s figures, first in the swaying Sequidilla, then in the militant Farruca and the wildly suggestive Jota. As we listen to the urbane voluptuousness of the reading, we recall the wonderful inscription of Nights in the Gardens of Spain with Markevitch’s esteemed soloist, Clara Haskil.
The Roussel ballet Bacchus et Ariane remained a Markevitch specialty, his having inscribed the second suite several times. Ariadne helped Theseus escape from the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, and Roussel’s music is brilliantly pictorial, its nine scenes (2 March 1953) evoking ever-intensified colors and modal effects. The series of Classical tableaux, girded by exotic hues and idiosyncratic counterpoint, appeal to the Markevitch temperament for subtle alchemy and metric complexity. Finally, Latvian soprano Mascia Predit (b. 1912) joins Markevitch (6 March 1952) for his own setting of six Mussorgsky songs–a feat he repeated with Vishnevskaya at the BBC–which capture the alternately sweet and morbid aspects of the composer’s personality. Predit sings in expressive Russian, bringing a deep longing to the Cradle Song and a vitriolic irony to The Ragamuffin. For a lighter tone, try the Pushkin satire, “The Magpie,” a kind of fable of a flighty bird and carefree gypsy. The last song, “On the Dnieper,” forms an ode and lament to the great source of Russian patriotism and the blood such love has demanded.
–Gary Lemco
