大象传媒

Kate Molleson explores the multiple legends and lore of Igor Stravinsky, from fables and rituals, to folk tales, myths and religious ceremonies. Today focusing on Stravinsky鈥檚 fascination for the tales of Greek antiquity.

Maybe it was inevitable that Stravinsky would find his way back to Greece at some point. For a composer who notoriously claimed that music is 鈥榚ssentially powerless to express anything at all,鈥� the stories of Greek drama were a way to sidestep emotion and psychology 鈥� to present archetypes controlled by the mechanisms of fate, as in Oedipus Rex, or as accompaniment to the austere inexpressive dance of Apollo, or concert works structured by the forms of Greek poetry as in Duo Concertant.

Oedipus Rex
Act 1: Caedit nos pestis
Shinyukai Choir and Saito Kinen Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa, conductor

Oedipus Rex
Act 1: Nonn' erubescite, reges
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor

Romanza, from Serenade in A for piano
Alexie Lubimov, piano

Orpheus (excerpt)
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

Apollo (excerpt)
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Dennis Russell Davies, conductor

Duo Concertant
Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Peter Nagy, piano

Oedipus Rex
Act 2: Jocastae caput mortuum!
Act 2: 鈥淓cce! Regem Oedipoda
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein, conductor