Tubin Kratt – Suite; Music for Strings; plus works by Bacewicz and Lutosławksi Estonian Festival Orchestra/Paavo Järvi Alpha Classics ALPHA1006 70:20 mins
This fourth release from Paavo Järvi and his peerless Estonian Festival Orchestra – think along the lines of Claudio Abbado’s last ten years in Lucerne – follows the previous two in featuring music from his native Estonia. The first full-length native ballet score, by the always impressive symphonist Eduard Tubin (1905-82), deserves to be heard at least in part, and the three-movement Suite has plenty of vibrancy. Maybe the manner is more impressive than the matter – though Tubin had recourse to native folk-music, not much sticks in the memory, but the scoring is always colourful and reflects the tale of the fireblazing goblin (Kratt) in thrall to Satan. The playing is as vivid as we’re ever going to get, with brass so impressive in the outer movements – the trombones especially so in the visceral Dance of the Exorcists – and strings ushered in by leader Florian Donderer bringing rustic charm to the central Peasant Waltz.
An ideal framing would have been to have the orchestra’s electrifying performance of Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra at the end, but that might have gone just beyond the 85-minute max. The rest, instead, is string music from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. So much from Eastern Europe had a grey pall, and you need to be in the mood to take the grittiness of Tubin’s Music for Strings and the tritonal harrowing of Lutosławski’s Musique Funèbre (the composer’s name is misspelled twice). Grażyna Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra has it all, though: rhythmic variety, concerto grosso solo stretches and genuine energy – a little masterpiece and, like everything else here, stunningly played.
David Nice
