Zubin Mehta/NYP - Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (1978) 24-Bit/96-kHz Vinyl Rip

Now that Zubin Mehta is moving from Los Angeles to the New York Philharmonic, we shall presumably be seeing new issues from both CBS and Decca. This makes a very impressive debut recording on the CBS label, another in the fine series of recordings of this virtuoso work from this company, including the composer's own (72054, 9/62) and Pierre Boulez's outstanding version (72807, 3/70).
Mehta's is a performance of extremes, of tempo as well as dynamic, and the CBS recording—which has oddities of balance but which in general is more spacious and less closely focused than one expects on this label— underlines the contrasts. Undeterred by Stravinsky's strictures on Karajan's "tempo di hoochie koochie" for the "Ritual of the Ancestors" in Part 2, Mehta has an identical, hypnotic tempo, marginally slower than the marking, but more controversially he has an equivalently slow tempo for a comparable passage in Part 1, the "Spring Rounds". His tempo for the opening bassoon solo is on the slow side too, and one is the more conscious of it when the style of phrasing is much more deliberately expressive than that of, say, Karajan's bassoonist in the new Berlin version (on DG).
Choosing between the now embarrassing array of superb versions of what has become a favourite showpiece presents almost insuperable problems, and though I note those relative idiosyncrasies, I cannot think they will upset any prospective purchaser. What is more open to doubt is the question of the recording and its occasional oddities. Overall the sound is breathtakingly vivid with tremendous impact but plenty of space round it, so that the heavyweight bass drum and multiple timpani beats leading into the "Glorification of the Chosen One" in Part 2 are as shattering as I have ever known them, matching the violently immediate recordings of Solti (Decca) and Abbado (DG). Thereis plenty of inner detail too in the big tuttis, but it is not always consistent or well balanced. In particular the horns tend to be weakly balanced, and where they should roar out in chorus at the Start of the "Ritual of the Rival Tribes" at the end of Part 1, the effect is unnaturally distant. That alone seems to me a serious blot of a kind you do not find in the other versions 1 have listed.
Mehta is a conductor who seems to respond distinctively to each of the orchestras he conducts, so that his Vienna and Israel performances are clearly distinguishable from each other and from his Los Angeles performances. And here again I suspect that we shall soon identify a particular brand of New York expressiveness, such as we did when Boulez recorded with this orchestra. The result here has great power and warmth, but in the last resort 1 would go to one or other of the rival accounts—to Abbadô for incisiveness, urgency and sheer savagery; to Sold for overwhelming power; to Haitink (on Philips) for clarity and directness; to Karajan (in his new version very different from the one criticized by Stravinsky—currently unavailable in the UK) for power and polish combined and a sense of logical concentration. But with such riches you can hardly go wrong.
(Edward Greenfield, Gramophone, July 1978)

Performers:
New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta

Track Listing:

1. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - part I
2. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - part II