The second volume in Arte Nova's series of modernist classics may strike dispassionate listeners as unnecessarily scattered and confusingly random, and quite unlike the first or third volumes. Those CDs offer more substantial and important pieces and are at least more coherent in their programs of similarly conceived works. This volume, however, has no apparent framework or underlying unifying theme, and one is obliged to sort through Stravinsky's disparate miniatures to find something to appreciate without too much puzzlement. His various short and often inconsequential morsels outnumber the two innocuous, unexciting works by Tippett and Britten, and one is left to wonder what significant connections these pieces might have, aside from their common neo-classical orientation; perhaps they are just the kind of dry, cerebral music Christopher Hogwood and the Basel Chamber Orchestra are most temperamentally suited to play. Emma Kirkby's blithe performances of the wordless Pastorale, the Three Songs from William Shakespeare, and the excerpts from The Rake's Progress are the most enjoyable moments in this otherwise scattershot program, yet these brief tracks are not enough to make this album of loose ends attractive to any except the most ardent Stravinskyian. The reproduction is clear and vivid.
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