BaL 26.05.18 - Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex

[Petrushka]

I have Solti (with the LPO - uncredited in EA's list), the early Colin Davis and the Salonen recording Bryn mentions in #8 (which I've not yet got round to playing).

Sir Ralph Richardson sounds horribly dated for the early Davis and I daresay a good number of the narrations were recorded in an entirely different acoustic to the rest of the performers, always a black mark in those works that use a narrator.

I've heard the work live twice only, once at a 1989 Prom with Salonen and again at a 1991 ENO staged performance with Sir Mark Elder.

I could well be in the market for a new version if one I don't have gets chosen.

[visualnickmos]

For my twopenceworth, I have the Ozawa (Philips) with the wonderful Jessye Norman, ably assisted by Peter Schreier, Bryn Terfel, et al. Right from the first time I listened, (about 10+ years ago) I was immediately 'in love' with it!

[Bryn]

Re. the Ancerl, it now has the final few notes which notoriously went missing from the original LP issue. Whether this is a case of restoration or finesse I do not know. Whichever, it sounds great.

[Pianoman]

Yes, definitely Ancerl as an overall first choice for me. The recording still sounds excellent, and the tricky balance of getting a narrator who's theatrical enough but not over-the-top (or the other way, too dull), plus a superb chorus and consistent soloists make this the standout version. Ancerl is the real star - pacing and energy are spot-on to me. I do have Salonen and the early Davis, but go back to Ancerl more often than those. I grew up on Bernstein but haven't heard it for years - I remember being slightly perplexed by hearing 'Solwe Wos' and "Oydipus' and wondering what was going on...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For my twopenceworth, I have the Ozawa (Philips) with the wonderful Jessye Norman, ably assisted by Peter Schreier, Bryn Terfel, et al. Right from the first time I listened, (about 10+ years ago) I was immediately 'in love' with it!

Available with "visuals", too - it was shown on Channel 4 in pre-"revolting bodies" days.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oedipus-Rex-Saito-Kinen-Festival/dp/B00092ZAOK

... a sample (complete with Narration in Japanese) here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyeR8lY7A_8

[visualnickmos]

Available with "visuals", too - it was shown on Channel 4 in pre-"revolting bodies" days.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oedipus-Rex-Saito-Kinen-Festival/dp/B00092ZAOK

... a sample (complete with Narration in Japanese) here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyeR8lY7A_8

Think I'll just stick with "sound only!" but thanks all the same....

[Bryn]

Think I'll just stick with "sound only!" but thanks all the same....

Very much your loss, I am sorry to say. This was a superb production. As long as your player can handle NTSC (most can), the DVD is a must for any Stravinsky enthusist, and even Mr. Hinton might find it of interest.

[rauschwerk]

Ancerl's version certainly has a lot going for it, certainly, but the thin and reedy voice of his Oedipus is a major drawback for me.

[Pulcinella]

According to Eric Walter White, Stravinsky himself pointed out some linguistic errors:
Mentiantur instead of mentiuntur (Jocasta's aria)
Miki instead of mihi (Oedipus, comment to chorus after Creon's aria)
Vale! instead of Ave! when the chorus hails the arrival of Creon.

[rauschwerk]

In his preface to the B&H score, Malcolm MacDonald tells us, "Stravinsky wanted Latin because of its monumental quality, and because its distancing effect would allow the audience to concentrate on the tragic action."

[Bryn]

The "narration" isn't in Latin - the original is in French, and this is translated into the language of whichever country the performance is taking place in. The sung sections are in Latin, but Cocteau was aware that his French text was going to be so translated from the very moment that he was approached to provide the text.

https://watermark.silverchair.com/knq175.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAZcwggGTBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggGEMIIBgAIBADCCAXkGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMryGUEoR7xuDGsjwHAgEQgIIBSig-6B4I4ifClecPtLC9uzSHypOzObTO1KjJ0IEPu7DLCmHZEOcOgM4w4iDYeI0sy_WYA7TrOLGP_okX-HRSucXEG_C4oisbVpUWeQLBEDMDzy9VyHfSDlNecgrancTjvGaeIFWKcHIhp3yl6iXldNoe3iSBPh5oEtmsL3EMl1FecaJy1i4CoctcNAnjDJuUgXGSaIZHSmtqW2QGvJ9QL6M9RwalRzakiG7xnXw-5Ops0ibkzOEdt2T8_m7Ofe97OoklrmgwxbZt3YrqVSPOMrqu_0RukzMXUvF0y64lyjBJK3GoVpWapsoL0G7IzKBICkQKnzoQE0OhV1i6ZpDX_0bCJ5NCNBlGbRhqHT8LQG67cZS5-CipIwiMyYfYiUYH5RljomDfgFnDPJRDjCQqPkqnFr5HeKoH_5rag_YdqV50rLg8zk_tiJ7-Qg

https://academic.oup.com/fs/article/65/1/30/621570

Cocteau worked with both Stravinsky (making radical changes to his text to suit the composer's conception of the work) and with Jean Danielou (who made the Latin translation), writing to the latter (on 8th Jan, 1926) "I await your first text with the greatest impatience" ... and then eleven days later, making further adjustments to his own text on Stravinsky's insistence.


I don't understand this - "Russian Orthodoxy" uses Church Slavonic, not Latin, doesn't it?


Yes.

But why Latin, and not the Greek of Sophocles? That's what I find curious.

[Pulcinella]

But why Latin, and not the Greek of Sophocles? That's what I find curious.

Quoting from White, again:

.....in his Chronicle he [Stravinsky] states:
The choice [of Latin] had the great advantage of giving me a medium not dead but turned to stone and so monumentalised as to have become immune from all risk of vulgarisation.

Doesn't explain why not Greek though, and presumably he wasn't yet aware of the 'vulgarisation' that the Americans would inflict with their Eddipus, as Michael Wagner pronounces it in the Bernstein recording (according to the Penguin Guide)!

[Richard Barrett]

But why Latin, and not the Greek of Sophocles? That's what I find curious.

It is curious but not inexplicable I think. Latin, as a result of its history (as the language of the church, the language scientists and philosophers of different mother tongues used for centuries to write in and to each other) has a kind of objective flavour about it, a concision and unambiguousness, which classical Greek doesn't have. Not to mention that it's probably much more familiar to most people. I've spent periods studying both languages, at different times and for different reasons, and I find Greek a far more poetic, beautiful-sounding, subtle and complex medium - but these are precisely the aspects that Stravinsky at the time wasn't interested in.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And perhaps Stravinsky simply understood Latin better than he did Greek - Oedipus is the first of a distinguished line of his works using Latin: Symphony of Psalms, Mass, Canticum Sacrum, Threni, Introitus, Requiem Canticles, and the Latin versions of the a capella choruses. He never set Greek. Walsh describes Stravinsky's secondary education as "a fusty and restrictive affair ... [t]he curriculum was heavily biased towards the classics". But Stravinsky wasn't a natuaral scholar in these conditions, and his later reports make frequent comments about absenteeism.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Good point, but he may still be using Latin as a distancing device with a spiritual edge. Some support for my point:

"The Latin text was apparently a distancing device, perhaps also with a sacred dimension, as with the Latin of the Mass, or the Old Slavonic of the Russian Orthodox liturgy in which Stravinsky had been brought up."

But I'm not sure why he chose Latin rather than Church Slavonic, maybe he wanted some distancing from his Slavonic roots, while maintaining the spiritual and classical dimensions.

- and there's also the Roman Catholic milieu of France in the 1920s and the work of Maritain in particular, which Stravinsky was at least partly attracted to. Latin is also much more familiar to choirs than is Church Slavonic, of course.