This
Stravinsky disc opens with a dull reading of the Concerto for piano, winds, basses, and tympani and closes with dreary performances by
Walter Olbertz of the solo Sérénade and the Piano Sonata. In between it has awkward accounts of the two suites for small orchestra and a gawky performance of the "Dumbarton Oaks" Concerto by
Herbert Kegel and the
Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig. In other words, it's among the poorer
Stravinsky recordings on the market. In standard nineteenth century Romantic repertoire,
Olbertz was a capable if dry East German pianist, but faced with
Stravinsky's spiky dissonances, jagged harmonies, serrated textures, and propulsive rhythms, he is distinctly out of his element. It's not so much that he can't play the notes, although he does sometime have trouble in the knottier passages. It's that he doesn't seem to grasp the style. Where this music should sound bright, tight, and slightly ironic, in
Olbertz's hands, it sounds heavy, sloppy, and gone to seed.
Neumann and the Gewandhaus seem uncomfortable with both
Olbertz and the music, and
Kegel and the
Leipzig radio musicians lack both spark and sparkle. And with the 1966
Olbertz/
Neumann recording's hard sound, the 1978
Olbertz recording's sharp sound, and the 1979
Kegel recording's flat sound, the act of listening itself is all too arduous.