Igor Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex/Ildebrando Pizzetti: Three...NormalGenre: Music DVD & Blu-rayLabel: DynamicDescription: Both Pizzetti and Stravinsky were drawn to the subject of Oedipus Rex but in very different contexts. The 24-year-old Pizzetti was commissioned to write Three Orchestral Preludes for use in a theatrical production. He wrote with an austere sense of orchestral colour devoid of impressionism that favours the vaguely archaic with modal inflections. Stravinsky's opera-oratorio was written in his neo-Classical style with a central role for narrator. In a stark stylised and formal setting the use of Latin and Stravinsky's instruction for the leading characters to wear masks add timeless impersonal elements to a work that culminates in catharsis.
