The soldier's tale

"Recommended: Does anyone really want to listen to such text more than once or twice, however good the words or the actor? ... Few works present this dilemma quite as powerfully as The Soldier's Tale. Not only does it contain lots of Stravinsky's best music, the music is decidedly theatrical in nature ... As for that music making, I have nothing but praise. In almost every conceivable way this version goes to the top of the pile ... Faust's playing, which is the thread that unites the three works recorded here, is remarkable even by her own exalted standards. Having not just a bona fide virtuoso but probably the greatest living violinist play the solo part of A Soldier's Tale takes this performance to another level compared to many fine rival versions ... Whilst this recording cannot solve the impossible and come up with a genuinely satisfying way of presenting spoken word and music on disc, it amply compensates the listener with vibrant performances that beguile and charm and move in the most entertaining manner imaginable".

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"Recording of the week: This is as lively and characterful a performance as you're ever likely to hear - as well as the most historically authentic that I'm aware of Each member of the septet plays on an instrument dating from the period of the work's composition (with the exception of Faust's Stradivarius and Wies de Boevé's double bass). This is particularly noticeable in the wind and percussion, where the soundworld is distinctively different from what modern instruments would create".

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"This works wonderfully well. Birtwistle's fruity and lugubrious soldier seems just the part and Benjamin's wily devil would persuade anyone. Harriet Walter carries the story well, including the passages of melodrama where she has to speak over the music ... The young players of the Royal Academy really revel in these and play with guts and a swagger which must be just what Stravinsky intended. Oliver Knussen does the honours from the podium with his customary skill".

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"I slutningen af Første Verdenskrig komponerede Stravinskij musikken til et teaterstykke om en soldat, der vender hjem fra krigen. Det blev et epokegørende opus ... der har fået en blændende fransk nyindspilning på cd ... Den nye franske cd-version glimrer først og fremmest ved skuespillernes formidable nærvær ... Man oplever det franske teaters dyder med passionerede tirader, musiske temposkift og den sonore galliske intonations farverigdom hos de agerende herrer ... Indspilningens musikere følger Stravinskijs hensigter helt til dørs, den indbyrdes dynamik er superbt koordineret ... og rosen må naturligvis i høj grad også rettes til dirigenten, Jean-Christophe Gavot".

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"Editor's choice: This 'Soldier's Tale' is avaiable in three languages, all of them recited by the French actor Dominique Horwitz ... and Horwitz is the master of it, the ryme, the slang and the task of differentiating between characters and narration ... Faust and her colleagues do indeed evoke the mise en scène of performers pulling up in a dusty square late one afternoon and performing from the back of an old truck ... For a full, modern, English 'Soldier's Tale', Horwitz and Faust and their colleagues go to the rop of the pile alongside the British-music-royalty version led by the late Oliver Knussen".

"None of these Virginian performances is quite wild enough, and that problem ultimately rests with the clear-headed but rather safe conductor JoAnn Falletta. I still want to hear more Klezmer swagger for the soldier and the devil, though the sophistication of Tianwa Yang's solos ... repays repeated listening ... The most impressive of the mini-trilogy is Les Noces ... This is a clear and enlighting performance".

Vurdering : 3/5.

"A fine performance all round ... Ensemble values are high, with actors and instrumentalists nicely integrated and a strong sense of give and take that reflects the recording's theatrical origins. Violinist Tianwa Yang is dexterous but unshowy in her all-important solos, but there's never any sense of her attempting to upstage the Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players, all of whom are very much her match in terms of virtuoso refinement ... This is certainly a contender, if you prefer the piece in English".

"[In] The Soldier's Tale ... the present team is committed to the mysterious timelessness of the entertainment and its abstractly progressive nature. The complementary, commemorative shorter pieces, including two Birtwistle items, are as exquisitely turned as might be expected from this source".

"It's superbly acted ... Vuillermoz makes a seductive, insidious Devil, though the great performance comes from Denis Podalydès's beautifully realised Soldier ... Gayot, elegant and witty, gives us something closer to cabaret. The playing is dexterous, svelte, at times flamboyant ... Enjoyable".

"Vurdering: Diapason d'or".