I've done Les Noces as a choral singer. For all my decades of experience, I can't think of another piece that transports the performers to another dimension the way this one does.
This takes me back to the early 1980s. I had the privilege to sing in this in the Welsh premiere in Cardiff under the late and great Cecilia Vajda's direction. Really enjoyed this performance despite sound/video synchronization.
Stravinsky abrió una brecha de constrastes e intensidades, manifiesta una pasión para romper con todo lo reprimido, con todo lo establecido, es una maravilla que trascienda! Amo sus Noces!
I sang this at the Verbier Festival in 1996 with the Halle Choir and Verbier Festival Orchestra. Kent Nagano was conducting. It is a fantastic piece to sing - once you have got to grips with the rhythms.
Just last week I saw Kent Nagano conduct this piece with the Orchestre Symphonique De Montreal. From 1996 to 2024, Les Noces must be meaningful to Nagano!
There's a killer recording of this piece - really raw and primitive - by the Dmitri Pekrovsky Ensemble. (Not sure about the spelling there...) Highly recommended. Dig the FOUR pianos!!
I saw the Pokrovsky Ensemble perform it live at Amherst College with MIDI-controlled pianos (as on the recording). They were amazing. Pokrovsky unexpectedly died shortly after the concert.
This performance is almost as good as Bernstein's. There is an old Columbia recording with Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions and Lukas Foss on piano. You'd think it would be great but it is a dry and stilted performance. Lukas Foss, I think, said he was not really up to it as a performer and was scared to death (this might have been Sessions but they were both such gentle people). At any rate, it would be fun to hear the original orchestration that Stravinsky discarded.
Toujour avec la meme émotion. Etudiant, je l'écoutais, en me servant à la Discotèque de Paris, il y a plus de 50 ans. Pas une ride. Magnifique. Une vraie explosion. J'aimerais avoir le texte de ces noces.
Terrible rhythmic problems for everyone.I'm going crazy studying one of the 4 piano parts for a future performance..but incredibly amazing music....!!! Genius Stravinsky...
I love this piece, but I have to admit sometimes it sounds like a catfight! Going from mainstream FM radio classical (yet another ballet by Delibes or somebody) to this is like going from the Carpenters to Captain Beefheart.
One of the greatest compositions of the 20th Century, IMHO, and Stravinsky's masterpiece, even greater, again IMHO, than Le Sacre du Printemps. The rhythms in this piece alone are more interesting, more dynamic, more percussive, more stimulating, and way more sexy than any 4-on-the-floor "dance" music.
Мне понравилось...Конечно сравнение с исполнением Покровского неизбежно, но исполнение Гергиева это сравнение выдерживает, в отличии (например) от анемичного Бернстайна. Энергично и с хорошей степенью "безумия". Бас - большой молодец! Ну и конечно "Настасья Шернобровая ")))) это отдельно удовольствие(ни к кому не в укор, конечно)
If you're going to post comments on YT make them constructive and use some manners. Clearly, your knowledge of classical music is greater than mine but don't flaunt it by putting people down with sarcasm.
Imagine the recording where the pianists are Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Lukas Foss and Roger Sessions. Still, as a ballet, this piece transcends. I get it.
as it was by the Symphony of Psalms as well...but Orff was no Stravinsky. Carmina Burana is a lot of fun, but it pales against Les Noces on any measure (except maybe ticket sales and use in TV ads).
Orff was no Stravinsky: that's an understatement. The two cannot be mentioned in the same breath. This thing about trying to legitimise Orff by comparing him to Stravinsky has annoyed me to know end. Stravinsky was a master, Orff was not. Simple as that.
I don't think this performance does it justice. There are some fine recordings of it, including some good historic ones. It takes a while to "get" this piece. The more familiar it becomes the more it can be appreciated. I think it is right up there with Petrouchka, Firebird, The Rite and Symphony of Psalms. It was Stravinsky's favourite piece.
I think this works needs to be viewed from the context of it's sources: Russian peasant song and modernism. The melodies are all based on Russian folk song. But it is angular, extremely percussive, broken up into fragments, like musical cubism. The work is remarkable for it's originality. In fact, it has not aged much at all since it was written, almost 100 years ago! Thats incredible.
The lead vocals and chorus have this very traditional western singing style and it doesn't work with this type of thing... You really need traditional Russian singers.
I suppose you're right about that. When it was performed, it was usually done with classically trained singers. However, I get more of a feel for the roots of the piece in rural Russian tradition and folklore when the traditional singers are involved. Some of them have a shrillness in tone that you don't find anywhere else and it really gives it a new dynamic to the piece. It's a fantastic piece either way, at the end of the day! :)
That is exactly the point of classical music - using classical music singers and instruments. My ex was a russian folk singer and she said the same thing you said after we saw Boris Godunov. It's not a folk music. There are also no russian instruments, as you can hear.
Maybe so but this is the way Stravinsky designed it. Stravinsky's father was a famous Russian bass so he practically grew up at the Mariinsky Opera and this is probably the kind of sound he heard in his head. I love the Pokrovsky Ensemble recording but I think it's a mistake to think it's the only way. And Gergiev infuses this performance with so much energy that I think, in its own way, it's just as Russian.
I saw them in performance about 20 years ago. Amazing (and using 4 sychronized Synclaviers together with live percussionists--a nightmare to pull off but didn't miss a beat). Sad that Pokrovsky died so young. Check out the Teodor Currentzis recording, which strikes a nice balance between traditional Russian singing styles and more "westernized" singing.
If you mean 11:37 , it's Russian folk tradition - there wasn't such thing to sing in tune in Russian village , just from the heart . And here she's crying about the daughter who's gonna leave sweet home ( yes , man,this mysterious Russian soul,traditionally even bride used to cry at that moment:))). So it would sound completely lifeless with pure A , big like she makes it this way.....