Ballet music: Le Sacre / Petrushka / The Firebird / Pulcinella / Suites no. 1 and no. 2

Stravinsky's collaboration with Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes was a very fruitful one. The Firebird was their first production together in a Paris season of ballet and opera. Soon to be followed by Petrushka, which was as successful.

A third project caused somewhat of a stir not to say a riot. Both music and Nijinsky's choreography of Le Sacre du Printemps (The rite of Spring, 1913) led to a noisy controversy in the audience. Yet this score has now become one of Stravinsky's most popular works.

Pulcinella, once more written for Diaghilev's company, is based on themes at the time contributed to Pergolesi. Here Stravinsky's neo-Baroque style shows a superb and inventive arranger. As do both orchestral suites with arrangements of his own music (3 and 5 Easy Pieces) for piano four hands.

Stylish performances of these highlights from Stravinsky's repertoire by the Philharmonia Orchestra and The Academy of St. Martins-in-the-Fields.

"The playing is superb - an extraordinarily virtuosic 'Games of the Rival Tribes' - and detail is crystal-clear." (Gramophone on The Rite)

"Marriner's Pulcinella is a joy from first bar to last; how the players enjoy the quirkiness of Stravinsky's scoring"
(Gramophone on Pulcinella)

Licensed from EMI