By Joseph McLellan

Igor Stravinsky had an almost obsessive aversion to interpretations of his music by other performers. "Music should be transmitted and not interpreted," his "Autobiography" insists, "because interpretation reveals the personality of the interpreter rather than of the author."

Fortunately for his peace of mind, Stravinsky was able to record almost all of his compositions -- usually as conductor, occasionally as a pianist and sometimes more generically as the "supervisor" while Robert Craft, the colleague (almost an alter ego) of his final years, took actual charge of the music. His recording career began in the 1920s and '30s but escalated enormously in the '60s when Goddard Lieberson, at CBS Records, launched the monumental Igor Stravinsky Edition under the composer's direction.

Now remastered on CD, revised, supplemented and reissued by Sony (SM3K 46291 to SMK 46302, 22 CDs with booklets), the Stravinsky Edition is the year's most notable set of CDs. That is a strong statement in a year when the Philips label is issuing its Complete Mozart Edition, with every surviving note old Amadeus ever composed and a few (as in the Requiem) that he didn't. This is a magnificent achievement, but to compete with the Stravinsky Edition it would have to include Mozart conducting "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," playing solo in his piano concertos and taking a viola part in his string quintets. Stravinsky's work in this set includes some piano playing from the '30s and '40s but focuses on his conducting in the '60s.

You will look in vain here for Stravinsky's orchestration of "The Star-Spangled Banner" or such juvenilia as "The Mushrooms Go to War" (1904), but these discs contain all of his music of any significance, from the late-romantic Symphony in E-flat (1905) to his last work, the 1966 song "The Owl and the Pussycat" (Stravinsky died in 1971). If anyone needs proof of his musical stature, it can be heard in these discs. They show Stravinsky as the central figure of 20th-century music. He dominates it as Pablo Picasso does the century's visual arts, with a power, a technical ease, a stylistic versatility and a breathtaking knack not only for innovation but for exactly the right innovation in a given context.

There is a tremendous diversity of styles in this music, from the lush romanticism of "Apollo" and "Le Baiser de la Fee" to the cryptic, atonal angularity of the Movements for Piano and Orchestra; the brash brilliance of "Petrushka," "Renard" and "L'Histoire du Soldat"; the elemental power of "The Rite of Spring"; the clever evocation of archaic forms in "The Rake's Progress" and "Pulcinella"; the playful exuberance of the "Circus Polka" and the "Greeting Prelude" (a wild variation on the familiar "Happy Birthday to You," lasting less than a minute). There is a fine awareness of popular idioms in his "Ragtime" and in the "Ebony" Concerto, composed for Benny Goodman. A stark sense of tragedy pervades "Oedipus Rex" as recorded by the Washington Opera in 1961. The composer also chose the Washington company for his recording of the short, exotically flavored opera "The Nightingale," which is by itself a striking document of Stravinsky's explosive growth from 1908 (when it was begun, before "Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring") to 1914 (when it was finished in a very different style).

Despite its variety of forms, styles and media, there is a unifying sense of personality running through all of Stravinsky's music. Even in the Op. 1 Symphony (a student work with obvious influences ranging from his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov to Wagner), a melodic or rhythmic cadence occasionally looks ahead and you can sense the roots of the great ballet scores to come.

In this collection, emphatically, the personality is in the music, not the interpretation; Stravinsky stuck to his rule that "music should be transmitted, not interpreted" even when he was the performer. Clarity and precision, not emotional expression, were his goals, and he insisted on submerging the performer's personality -- any performer's -- in the music. This has led some music lovers and even critics to question his technical skill as a conductor. Such a complaint might have been valid when he began, but by the early '60s he was a highly experienced and skilled conductor, able to get what he wanted from an orchestra whether or not it was what patrons and critics wanted.

His primary virtue (one well suited to the music) was clarity: precision of rhythm and ensemble sound and carefully calculated balances and textures. In Volume 4 of the series, "Symphonies, Rehearsals and Talks" (SM2K 46294, two CDs with booklet), he can be heard rehearsing authoritatively and with focused skill. The results are usually acceptable, often very good, but the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (also Columbia Percussion Ensemble or Columbia Chamber Ensemble) was, by any name, a freelance group recruited for the recording with skilled players but no real collective identity. Established, international-class orchestras (the Chicago Symphony used in "Orpheus," the Cleveland Orchestra in "Jeu de Cartes," the Royal Philharmonic in "The Rake's Progress") are smoother and more polished. As a pianist (with violinist Joseph Szigeti in the Duo Concertant, solo in the Serenade in A and Piano-Rag, with his son Soulima in the Concerto for Two Solo Pianos), he is capable but not in the same league as such pianist-composers as Leonard Bernstein or Benjamin Britten.

In short, these recordings have their imperfections; they are nonetheless usually effective and always uniquely valuable for understanding the composer's view of his own music. He is at his best in the best works: "Petrushka," "The Rite of Spring," "The Rake's Progress," "Oedipus," "Apollo." Despite heavy competition, we are not likely to hear most of these performed more effectively in a long while, though the Pierre Boulez recording of "The Rite of Spring" has the Stravinskian clarity and objectivity with a better orchestra (the New York Philharmonic) playing. This version of "Les Noces" has an excellent chorus and superb diction, but it loses impact by being sung in English rather than Russian, the tempos fluctuate a bit much, and the ensemble is not always precise. I prefer the old Ansermet version of "Renard" partly for its language (French rather than English), partly because the singers use their voices with just the right percussive accent and mostly, no doubt, simply because I have lived with it so long. "L'Histoire du Soldat" is performed only as an instrumental suite without the dialogue and narration that give it so much of its flavor. Those who want the story with the music should try the Stokowski version on Vanguard.

Now Playing The Choir of King's College, Cambridge (which performs today at the Washington National Cathedral), is best known in this country through the King's Singers, a small ensemble of skilled alumni that regularly sings to standing-room audiences at the Kennedy Center. Judging by its latest recording, conducted by Stephen Cleobury (EMI CDC 7 54188 2, with texts), the larger choir of men and boys at the English college has similarly high standards of performance and almost as much versatility of repertoire. Perhaps in honor of its American tour, the repertoire is entirely American: Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms," William Schuman's "Carols of Death," Copland's "In the Beginning," Ives's technically brilliant, tonally ambiguous "Psalm 90" and Libby Larsen's vivid "How It Thrills Us," composed for this chorus. The selections are highly varied and superbly chosen, and a cappella singing doesn't get much better.