Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite CD review – crisp Suzuki delivers earth and fire

Masaaki Suzuki remains most strongly associated with his own Bach Collegium Japan, but he has a parallel conducting career away from the ensemble and the composer. This all-Stravinsky disc finds him teamed with Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta. There’s a baroque sensibility to their performance of the suite from Pulcinella, the ballet Stravinsky crafted early 18th-century scores – Suzuki makes each note count as the individual lines combine and compete, perhaps at the expense of the music’s natural, classical lyricism. And so, while it’s crisp and pleasingly emphatic, there’s a sense that the performance is keeping a lid on the music’s exuberance

. Similarly, both Apollon Musagète and the

can sound airier and more fluid than this, but in these strings-only mini-masterpieces the Sinfonietta sounds earthy and fiery, and two out of four elements is definitely something to be going on with.