To adequately appreciate
Igor Stravinsky's three mature symphonies -- the Symphony in Three Movements (1945), the Symphony in C (1940), and the Symphony of Psalms (1930) -- it helps to have first-rate performances that are both crystal clear in execution and appropriate in interpretation, led by a maestro who keeps both needs in mind.
Michael Gielen is an excellent conductor for this music, not only because he brings out all the details in the scores with absolute precision, but also because he knows what is expressively right in each piece. It's too easy to settle on a single cool tone for
Stravinsky's neo-Classical works and to set an orchestra on a neutral course, as if to follow the composer's debatable pronouncements on his music. Yet there are pronounced characteristics in these symphonies (if not suggestions from the rather dramatic circumstances of their composition) that suggest certain emotional shadings are necessary and important to highlight. Fortunately
Gielen keeps the hard-edged Symphony in Three Movements at a level of combative intensity well suited to the work's wartime origins, presents the brilliant Symphony in C with a fine balance of Beethovenian punch and Haydn-esque humor, and delivers the awe-inspiring Symphony of Psalms with a sublime devotional feeling that this testament of faith should always communicate. The
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg is remarkably solid in all three works, and in combination with the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln for the Symphony of Psalms, both energetic and sensitive to the work's emotional core, notwithstanding
Stravinsky's famed "objectivity." Hänssler's reproduction is crisp and delightfully realistic, with a wide dynamic range.