MUSIC
The Rake's Progress.
THE Third Programme is to be congratulated on its presentation- of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. The singers were excellent. Alexander Young in the title-role, Gwen Catley as Anne and Anna Pollak as Baba were admirably cast vocally, and sang with great musical intelligence and feeling for Stravinsky's strong, nervous rhythms and generously vocal phrases. Otakar Kraus's Nick Shadow would have been more impressive, both musically and dramatically, without the unpleasant wobble which appears when- ever he puts the slightest pressure on his voice. In the small part of the auctioneer Jan van der Gucht gave an expert suggestion of the Offenbach character which was clearly in the composer's mind. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under Paul Sacher, managed Stravinsky's delicate ostinato accompaniments with great tact, his strong " tonal " introductions and cadences with straight-faced conviction ; and in the moments of orchestral scene-painting—the wood-wind introduction to Act 1, scene 3, and the lower strings before Act 3, scene 2—the playing was marked by great poetic sensibility.
It seems superfluous, even ungenerous, to submit so thoroughly enjoyable, so technically irreproachable, so wholly unproblematical a work to the loupe of criticism. Its musical invention;plainly fed from many different sources, never flags ; and if this is indeed pastiche, then Stravinsky's pastiche is more 'personal than the first- hand, " original " language of most contemporary composers. Perhaps The Rake's Progress is the neo-classical classic par excellence, for it entirely lacks the note of anxious, anti-romantic Protestantism, the scrupulous aridity and the fussy precision which marked- so much neo-classical music. The splendours and miseries of the nineteenth century are as though they had not been ; and when some of Stravinsky's more eccentric- musical enthusiasms obtrude their elegant heads from the score, they have suffered such trans- positions of context, intention and physical feature that they have become wholly his own. The composer of whom he fights most persistently shy is his own earlier self. Only the few bars in which the brothel clock is turned back recalled for a moment the composer of Petrushka.
On the other hand, Stravinsky is quite content—or, more probably in so highly self-conscious a composer, deliberately chooses—to indulge in mannerisms which are generally adaptations of eighteenth- century commonplaces. The repeated chord figures and syncopated patterns of repeated notes, which occur in all his works of the last ten years, occasionally became rather tedious in the--.three acts of The Rake's Progress, where the mere extent of the music makes mannerisms more noticeable. But to have Stravinsky writing for the stage again is to realise how much we have been missing, what instinct for the musical mot juste to sum up a situation or suggest an atmosphere. Rakewell's song. in the brothel-scene of Act 1, for — instance, is a wonderful instance of " dry " pathos ; and the discip- lined wanderings of the harpsichord which accompany the gambling scene in Act 3 gave the atmosphere of mystery without any of the - Pique Dame paraphernalia which most composers disguise rather than discard in such scenes.
With so successfully chosen a cast it only remains to put the work into repertory (after production at the Edinburgh Festival this year), where its musical charm and entertainment value should ensure it a success. Sadler's Wells might surely find many worse investments.
MARTIN COOPER.
Previous page
