In Abraham and Isaac, Stravinsky is again exploring tone rows, the music ascending and descending in interesting cadences. Here the vocal line carries the structure rather well, single instruments in the orchestration acting to expand details in the singing. It also vaguely recalls Hebrew chant, which is itself cadential, but carries emotional charge. In his final work for orchestra, Variations, from 1963-4, Stravinsky dispenses altogether with the need for voice. Perhaps as a result, his writing seems freer and fresher as he plays with purely musical ideas.

The best parts of this recording are the Requiem Canticles, completed in 1966. Here, Stravinsky has developed serialism in a distinctively personal way. In the Prelude, the strings capture an exciting tension which evaporates into exquisitely lustrous choral singing. The words “Exaudi, Exaudi” alert you to the detailed structure of the movement. The Dies Irae is similarly alert and sharply focused, the choral singing strikingly precise. A particularly bright trumpet fanfare introduces the baritone. David Wilson- Johnson sings of the “trumpets’ astonishing sound, which sparkles …” and here it most certainly does. After an introspective Interlude, the choir returns, before Susan Bickley enters, plaintively shaping the long, keening lines in the Lachrymosa. But the high point of the piece is the Libera Me with its combination of spoken word and song, performed in interesting cross-currents. Like the tolling of bells with which the piece concludes, the words “Libera Me” peal over and over in different formations. Knussen and the Sinfonietta are new music specialists. Twelve-tone rows hold no mystery for them. Indeed, it is the clarity and precision of this performance that lets the beauty of Stravinsky’s writing shine through. It’s also very emotionally focused, as befits a requiem written by a master who understood that a Requiem has meaning, and isn’t just form.

It’s altogether fitting that this piece is followed by Charles Wuorinen’s Reliquary for Igor Stravinsky, for Wuorinen continues the mood of late Stravinsky and develops the ideas further. Wuorinen built his piece from a fragment from Stravinsky’s notes, developing variations on it, much in the liberal way Stravinsky had written the Variations heard earlier on this disc; thus, “reliquary”, a relic embellished with reverence. This is the classic account of the work, a milestone in Knussen and the Sinfonietta’s repertoire. Indeed, it was chosen as one of the first releases on the Sinfonietta’s own label. It has been reviewed earlier on Musicweb, by Glyn Pursglove and by myself.

The performance is exactly the same. The main difference between the discs is the pairings, which in both cases are well chosen.

-- Anne Ozorio, MusicWeb International