To the average music aficionado, especially the balletomanes, the name of Stravinsky conjures up visions of the great Ballets Russes, Diaghilev, Bakst and of course Nijinsky; TheFirebird, Petrouchka and the groundbreaking Rite ofSpring.

TheRite or Sacre duPrintemps is still considered to be a turning point in the history of music.

When it was first performed, there were riots and the police had to be called in. It was as if the end of the world was nigh which, in 1913, when TheRite was premiered, it almost was, considering that the world would be plunged into ‘the war to end all wars’ just a year later.

World War I changed the face of the 20th century as surely as 9/11 has transmogrified our own 21st. When Picasso made those iconic ink sketches of Stravinsky in 1920, culture had changed beyond all recognition.

TheRite was but a distant memory as were the last vestiges of realist painting. Art began to peel away layer upon layer of veneer to reach the essential in a desperate quest to discover the reality of human nature.

Artists were emerging, physically maimed or psychologically scarred, from one of the most senseless and bloody conflicts the world had ever experienced.

The rejection of the establishment just had to happen, just as it is happening all over again now, for nothing is new under the sun. If only man ever learnt anything from his past mistakes.

LesNoces is not altogether ballet or acantata. It is a hybrid of both and ends up being neither fish nor fowl. It is not remotely like Stravinsky’s pre-war output, apart from a few snatches here and there.

The ostinatopercussion, that in Sacre reminds one of some gigantic primeval machine, has been reduced to an unorthodox scoring of chorus, four pianos and percussion.

Gone are those tremendous passages of explosive energy full of dense orchestration that knock one flat in Sacre for LesNoces is something new altogether; music pared down to the bare essentials, stark in its precision and devoid of the sensuality that oozes so effortlessly from Stravinsky’s previous compositions.

The use of four pianos in Les Noces may have had something to do with the collaboration between Pleyel and the composer for the production of pianola rolls with his music.

Whatever it is, the music of Les Noces, despite its French title, is extremely Russian. This characterised last Tuesday’s concert in the Malta Arts Festival series entitled ‘Slavonic Folk Scenes’ with a small choir, the Ars Ludi Percussion Ensemble, and four pianists under the direction of Gianluca Ruggeri.

A creditable performance with some very competent singing, especially from mezzo Silvia Schiavoni who went the extra mile in expression, but one that did not quite live up to its promise. The performance lacked soul.

It may have made sense to give subtitles or a translation of what was going on in our programmes. There wasn’t even a synopsis.

I am not enamoured of this Russian period. Possibly because of what was going on in Russia, Stravinsky became more defensively nationalistic than he ever was.

And Russian folk culture is hardly European mainstream as its Asian influences are myriad. The overall effect of LesNocesis that of a prickly work that is far too cerebral as opposed to sensual.

It is a work that is highly appreciated by the cognoscentias an intellectual exercise rather than an enjoyable experience for the average concert-goer to savour.

The first half of the programme I found rather dull. I do not know who arranged Bartók’s Romanian DancesforTwoPianosandPercussion; however, they were devoid of that febrile and frenetic excitement that characterised Bartók’s sonata for the same combination: the percussion tended to merely enhance the pianistic rhythms and remained, to my mind at least, an extraneous disposable decoration and not an integral part of the whole as it is in the sonata.

Of the twoacappellapieces, I much preferred the Russian Credo. This conjured up images of the great Russian Orthodox religious ceremonies that mesmerise you with battalions of gorgeously attired metropolitans, patriarchs and priests marching up and down those vast aisles.

It is as medieval as this tightly knit and musically intricate Russian Credo, which I felt could have been executed with greater smoothness.

There was also a SerenadeinA for piano solo, so long that it was shared out by the four pianists, which merely emphasised its interminability.

As an encore, an excerpt of Orff’s CarminaBurana went down a treat, giving an interesting glimpse of what might have been.