Tchaikovsky – Suite No. 3 – Stravinsky -Divertimento

At first glance, there is no connection between the two works recorded on this SACD – The Suite no. 3 by Tchaikovsky and the Divertimento from Stravinsky’s Le baiser de la fée – and yet on many different levels the compositions are definitely more than just loosely linked to one another. Thus, both composers treated the seemingly rather archaic musical models on which they each based their composition in an individual and contemporary manner. In his Op. 55, Tchaikovsky examined the model of the late Baroque suite to see how it could be used in a modern symphonic context, and, in his ballet Le Baiser de la Fée, Stravinsky in his turn subjected Tchaikovsky’s musical idiom to a more intensive investigation with regard to the employment of the Orchestra, the symphonic extension and hidden meaning. Consequently, the linking of the works takes place at the ‘meta’ level of the ‘music on music.’.