Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, whose Grammy® award-winning accounts of Stravinsky’s Symphony in C and Symphony of Psalms are among Gramophone magazine’s Top 10 Stravinsky Recordings (2011), return to the composer with a recording of the ground-breaking ballet Le Sacre du printemps, whose premiere a century ago marked a turning point in 20th century music history. The programme on this release also includes new recordings of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Apollon Musagète, another of the Russian master’s breathtaking ballets.

Although the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps in Paris on 29th May 1913 famously set off a near-riot, the work quickly became recognised as one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century. The 100th anniversary of the premiere will be commemorated with performances all over the world in 2013 and, no doubt, with some new recordings. On record and in performance, Simon Rattle has championed the orchestral works of Stravinsky with insight and dedication over many years and this latest recording is an important addition to his Stravinsky discography.

This recording of three of Stravinsky’s major works of the period was made in 1951 at the new radio station in Cologne, and features the composer himself conducting the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra in performances of Apollon Musagète, the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Oedipus Rex. The soloists in Oedipus Rex included Peter Pears and Martha Mödl. On October 8 1951 the newly built state-of-the-art complex “Funkhaus” at Wallraffplatz in Cologne put on a very special concert. No less a figure than Igor Stravinsky was called in as the godfather of the new “great broadcasting hall”. The programme performed consisted of three of Stravinsky’s recent works, “Apollon musagète”, “Oedipus-Rex” and, as a German debut, the “Symphonies of Wind Instruments”. The Radio Orchestra was conducted by the composer himself, and the soloists in Oedipus Rex were Peter Pears, Martha Mödl, Heinz Rehfuss, Otto von Rohr, and Helmut Krebs. The narrator was Werner Hessenland and chorus was an augmented version of the male voice choir of the NWDR.

The recordings on this album were made in the studio on the day before the concert.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) caused a sensation early on in the 20th century with the first performance in 1913 of his ballet Le sacre du printemps (The rite of Spring). This event marked the composer as a musician of the new century and throughout his life Stravinsky remained at the forefront of the musical avant-garde, keeping abreast of musical developments right up to he time of his death. All of the works in this set of orchestral pieces were written during Stravinsky's neo-classical period, which lasted from around 1920 until about 1953, after which he adopted the serial technique first developed by Arnold Schoenberg.

The Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden has in recent years formed a strong musical relationship with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and the result of this is an ongoing series of recordings for Octavia of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies. On this new hybrid SACD they perform three works by Igor Stravinsky, the ballet suites from “Petrushka” and “Pulcinella”, and the “Symphonies of Wind Instruments”.

Stravinsky’s Petrushka was the second of his three great “Russian” ballets following The Firebird and before The Rite of Spring. It was first performed in Paris in 1911 by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe. “Pulcinella” and the “Symphonies of Wind Instruments” were written during Stravinsky’s neo-classical period. Some of the score of the former is adapted from the music of the early eighteenth century Italian composer Giovanni Pergolesi.

Born in Amsterdam in 1960, Jaap van Zweden began his musical career as a violinist, becoming at nineteen the youngest ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He is now Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Radio Kamer Filharmonie, Music Director of Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra. He is currently recording a Bruckner cycle for Octavia, with symphonies 4, 5, 7, 9 and 2 already released to great critical acclaim.