Stravinsky – Chamber Works
Barbara Hannigan; Royal Academy of Music; Juilliard School Ensemble
LINN CKD722 (outhere-music.com/en/albums/stravinsky-chamber-works)
In the ideal Platonic State, where dramatists, singers, instrumentalists, dancers, painters and poets dwell, Barbara Hannigan might occupy a place in its upper echelons. She is a formidable artist, whose dramaturgy brings human endeavour vividly to life. As a singer her soprano is luminous; nonpareil and informed by sublime, leaping and swooping lyricism. Her art may interpretate – not imitate – life, as a sage Plato would have it. But poetics that reach the Divine? And who could fault a director of celebrated orchestras who virtually writes her own script? Surely not even Plato who, in a moment of madness, may be seduced as well.
With Stravinsky: Chamber Works, Hannigan and Stravinsky seem perfectly matched. Both are shapeshifting musical omnivores who can become the music they perform. If you haven’t already been mesmerized by Hannigan’s Messiaen, Berg, Gershwin and Zorn, her Stravinsky will have you completely in her power.
Hannigan reveals Stravinsky’s elements of “objectivist architecture” in the Octet and Septet with panache redolent of the master’s neo-classical genius. The spirited Dumbarton Oaks belies the subtle influence of Bach. The shorter works – poems and songs – are scintillating, revealing the musical chameleon in Stravinsky. The Juilliard School Ensemble and Royal Academy of Music perform with idiomatic grace under Hannigan’s baton, and Alexandra Heath’s soprano is spine tingling. Also notable is Charlotte Corduroy whose conducting elevates the Concertina, but it is Hannigan and Stravinsky who stand shoulder-to-shoulder in Plato’s State.
