Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, etc.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle
Awards:
-
Building a Library, June 2004, Highly Recommended
Go for Rattle if it’s detail you’re after and blow the raw primitivism. Very texture-sensitive and atmospheric, for sure, but occasionally also rather indulgent.
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, etc.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Rattle
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Building a Library, June 2004, Highly Recommended
Go for Rattle if it’s detail you’re after and blow the raw primitivism. Very texture-sensitive and atmospheric, for sure, but occasionally also rather indulgent.
About
Contents and tracklist
- City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
- Sir Simon Rattle
- Recorded: 1988-04-01
- Recording Venue: April 1988, Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick
- City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
- Sir Simon Rattle
- Recorded: 1988-04-01
- Recording Venue: April 1988, Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick
Stravinsky:
The Rite of Spring, 'Le sacre du printemps' (1947 revised version), Part 1
Work length12:50
- City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
- Sir Simon Rattle
- Recorded: 1987-12-31
- Recording Venue: December 1987, Arts Centre, University of Warwick
L'adoration de la terre: Introduction - Les augures printaniers - Danse des adolescentes - Jeu de rapt
Track length5:02
L'adoration de la terre: Rond printanières - Jeux des cités rivales - Cortège de sage
Track length6:09
Stravinsky:
The Rite of Spring, 'Le sacre du printemps' (1947 revised version), Part 2
Work length19:09
- City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
- Sir Simon Rattle
- Recorded: 1987-12-31
- Recording Venue: December 1987, Arts Centre, University of Warwick
Le sacrifice: Glorification de l'élue - Évocation des ancêtres - Action rituelle des aancêtres
Track length6:04
Awards and reviews
July 2008
Go for Rattle if it’s detail you’re after and blow the raw primitivism. Very texture-sensitive and atmospheric, for sure, but occasionally also rather indulgent.
2010
Recordings of The Rite of Spring are legion, but it's rare to find Stravinsky's most explosive ballet score coupled with Apollon musagète, his most serene. The result is a lesson in creative versatility, confirming that Stravinsky could be equally convincing as expressionist and neo-classicist.
Yet talk of lessons might suggest that sheer enjoyment is of lesser importance, and it's perfectly possible to relish this disc simply for that personal blend of the authoritative and the enlivening that Simon Rattle's CBSO recordings for EMI so consistently achieve. Rattle never rushes things, and the apparent deliberation of TheRite's concluding 'Sacrificial Dance' may initially surprise, but in this context it proves an entirely appropriate, absolutely convincing conclusion.
Rattle sees the work as a whole, without striving for a spurious symphonic integration, and there's never for a moment any hint of a routine reading of what's now a classic of the modern orchestral repertoire.
The account of Apollon has comparable depth, with elegance transformed into eloquence and the CBSO strings confirming that they have nothing to fear from comparison with the best in Europe or America. The recordings are faithful to the intensity and expressiveness of Rattle's Stravinsky, interpretations fit to set beside those of the composer himself.