Search - Stravinsky, Cocteau, Ustinov :: Stravinsky: Histoire du Soldat [Germany]

A true "great recording of the century"

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 12/01/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the absence of a complete "L'histoire du soldat" from the composer (or have I missed it?), this wonderful 1962 performance under Igor Markevitch must stand in. It features sharp, tangy playing from a band of Swiss musicians in Lausanne (members of the local Orchestre de la Suisse Romande?) and the somewhat haughty Jean Cocteau as narrator. His presence so impressed Philips that the whole program note is devoted to him, even though Cocteau didn't write L'histoire and certainly didn't compose it. The other great asset in the cast of speakers is Peter Ustinov as a mischievous, moody, androgynous Devil. The soldier is the appealingly innocent Jean-Marie Fertey, an unknown to me who has no biography at Google.



Stravinsky hit on hard times when he retreated to Switzerland during WW I. He tried to write income-producing pieces on a small scale in hopes that someone might perform them. L'histoire is a knowingly fey tale, as opposed to a real fairy tale, written in verse by Swiss poet C F. Ramuz. Its narrative of a fiddling soldier who gets tempted by the Devil's magic book that fulfills every wish is drily told by Stravinsky. Markevitch and company sound suitably objective and crystal clear. At times the actors are almost Brechtian.



The result is thoroughly convincing theater, like a radio drama wiht music. The score for L'histoire is a series of short interludes--marches, a tango, jazzy riffs, funeral and wedding music, etc. featuring the soldier's old violin--that prefigure Stravinsky's life-long fondness for writing pieces lasting under five minutes. None are as delightful as this score born of empty pockets. Highly recommended.



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