Sunday, September 21, 2025
Golden Hall, Musikverein, Vienna
The first Vienna Philharmonic subscription programme of its 25-26 season, played yesterday at the Musikverein, and due there a couple more times (and at the Konzerthaus) following this Sunday-morning date, and then away from base if not with Martha Argerich, rather Lukas Sternath. Argerich was on first with one of her chosen Concertos (a few days ago at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest she played another of these not-many works, Ravel’s G-major, broadcast live with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and Charles Dutoit, eighty-nine shortly, looking well). Fleet and mercurial, Argerich devoured Prokofiev’s solo part, keys smouldering, if without haste, always shapely, percussive and gentle touches when required, scintillating glissandos, and a thrilling dash to the finishing post. At no point were the Vienna Philharmonic and Tugan Sokhiev bystanders. For an encore, Argerich offered her regular Scarlatti D-minor Sonata (Kk141, I think), with verve and an unstinting left-hand.
Following the interval, Petrushka, in its original 1911 scoring (preferable to the ’47 revision), Sokhiev choosing measured tempos, to aid musical articulacy and clarity of detail, yet with no lack of characterisation and theatrical import… but ruined by some sort of concert ending to deny us the ghostly final few minutes. Unacceptable!!!
Was it not the 9-bar concert ending that Stravinsky provided as an option, and used by too many conductors (including Stokowski and the Berlin PO on his 1957 recording for Capitol)? Quite agree, it’s a sudden, horrible misguided ‘that’s-enough-of-that’ truncation!
I have only heard the ‘concert ending’ used in performances of the 1947 score. My understanding has long been that Stravinsky didn’t compose, but disowned, it. Maybe/maybe not. Anyway, the one Sokhiev used seemed a little different, certainly ‘out of the blue’, and brutal. BTW, this was no “Suite”, but 1911 complete save for the dubious – unmusical – decision to cut the final minutes.
I wonder if the ‘some sort of concert ending ‘ to which Colin refers is the one Stravinsky himself made in the United States in the mid-1940s when he learned (soon after he moved to America) that his early music was not in copyright in the USA – so he made slight changes to Firebird, Petruska and Rite of Spring, thereby copyrighting the ‘revised versions’ – which were also the only ‘versions’ he permitted thereafter to be played, broadcast and recorded in the USA.
What cannot be denied is that these later ‘revised versions’ are not acceptable variants from the consistent magnificent qualities of the original scores – though quite why anyone would want to perform the original Firebird complete as a concert item is beyond me – without the narrative of the stage action it is an aural borefest.
I’ve checked the Wiki entry on “Petrushka” and under “Other versions” is says that in 1946 “Stravinsky thinned the ballet’s scoring, in part because the original was not covered everywhere by copyright.” This ties in with what Bob says above and it then goes on to say: “Separately, Stravinsky created a suite for concert performance, an almost complete version of the ballet but cutting the last three sections and adding a loud ending which replaced the quiet ending of the ballet itself.”
I’m not sure how many conductors have recorded this “Concert Suite” but Andrew mentions Stokowski, who made the first American recording of the complete ballet score with his Philadelphians in 1937. His Berlin PO recording of the Suite came to 16 minutes and as luck would have it, Celibidache and the LSO played it in Madrid in 1978, the luck part being that it’s on YouTube at 14 minutes!
Even more fortunate – and here again we laud YouTube for letting us hear and see things we never hear or see anywhere else – we have Stravinsky himself conducting his “Suite” twice. The interesting thing about the 1947 NYPO recording is that whoever uploaded it, put the score pages in the video. That means you get to see what Andrew describes as a “horrible misguided truncation” on the last page of the score. The other video is of a TV transmission from Moscow in 1962.
Stravinsky starts off with a slow introduction, whereas Stokowski and Celibidache both launch off straight away with the Russian Dance. There’s a video of Stokowski conducting the “Suite” in Sweden in 1967 and he really makes the most of that controversial ending!
Anyway, here are a few YouTube videos for your edification. Firstly, Stravinsky and the NYPO in 1947 complete with the score pages on the screen …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2jKmsUobtE&t=22s
Here he is again, on the TV this time, in Moscow in 1962 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj6kZGjqC9k&list=RDoj6kZGjqC9k&start_radio=1
Here’s Celibidache in Madrid with the LSO in a 1978 radio broadcast …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlVzl2C-5dA
Finally, Stokowski on the TV in Sweden in 1967 .. with “that” ending! …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdV1My77cC0&list=RDKdV1My77cC0&start_radio=1
Hope you enjoy!
Thanks Edward, more from me soon. Colin
Hi again Edward, here’s the “more”. Thanks for your diligent researching. I am beginning to think, despite what the Vienna Phil’s website, and Austrian Radio’s presentation, advised, that Sokhiev used the 1947 score, which would fit the date of the concert ending (about which Andrew Keener is spot on). As for the Suite, apart from reasons of copyright, what a musical misjudgement on Stravinsky’s part to have concocted such a mutilated piece. Glad you found the Celi – he conducted it in London when he returned to the LSO after nearly twenty years, followed by Debussy’s ‘Iberia’ and Brahms 4. However well-rehearsed and -played it might have been, I thought it a poor choice by Celi; now I know that the fault is the composer’s!
The composer’s New York version, above, isn’t the complete 1947 score (which mirrors 1911 except in scoring, unless the concert ending is utilised) but the Suite with an extra bit at the beginning.