More New SFSymphony+ Stravinsky Videos

Ironically, exactly one week ago today, the day after I had written about two new videos of performances of the music of Igor Stravinsky that had been uploaded for streaming from the SFSymphony+ Web site, the San Francisco Symphony uploaded two more Stravinsky performances to that site. While the first round of videos presented two solo performances, the second served up two different approaches to chamber music. Both of them involve some interesting “ancestral history.”

The earlier of these involves Stravinsky’s relationship with the string quartet genre. HIs earliest chamber music composition was entitled “Three Pieces for String Quartet.” It was originally written for the Flonzaley Quartet, completed in 1914 and given the title “Grotesques.” That original title probably accounted for Stravinsky’s attitude towards string quartet music. However, he revised it in 1918; and it was then published in 1922. Since then it has been performed by any number of reputable string quartets willing to give the audiences a taste of Stravinsky without worrying about that original title.

Nadya Tichman, Amy Hiraga, David Kim, and Peter Wyrick playing the original (and rambunctious) concertino that Stravinsky composed for string quartet

Meanwhile, Stravinsky thought that he had composed the music in such a way that his dislike for string quartets would be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. Sadly, the Flonzaley Quartet did not “get the message;” and they asked Stravinsky for another composition! The result was the concertino that has now been performed and saved as an SFSymphony+ video.

This time the score practically shouts out: “I really had string quartets!” Ironically, in 1952 Stravinsky rescored this composition for an ensemble of twelve instruments consisting of winds, brass, and strings. This is the version that Columbia decided to record. There is still an aggressive stubbornness in the parts assigned to the strings; however, the rhetoric of the entire composition has now shifted to the strings fussing about the winds and brass having too much fun. Personally, I rather enjoy the tantrums that Stravinsky throws in the original string quartet version. However, the performers, violinists Nadya Tichman and Amy Hiraga, violist David Kim, and cellist Peter Wyrick, were all wearing masks; so I could not see what sorts of facial expressions they were hiding.

The other new video presents music that Stravinsky originally composed for his one-act opera “Mavra.” He later transcribed the opening aria, sung by the heroine Parasha, as a duet for cello and piano. I do not know if he prepared this transcription in response to a request by Mstislav Rostropovich, but I do know that Rostropovich is the only cellist I have heard play this arrangement! The new SFSymphony+ video probably used that arrangement as a point of departure and revised the transcription for violin and piano, performed by violinist Leor Maltinski with Avi Downes at the piano. This is definitely Stravinsky at his most lyrical, even if the aria serves as a calm before a storm of farcical activities.