Stravinsky: L’Oiseau De Feu / Le Sacre Du Printemps (Lorin Maazel) (CD, Br-Klassik)

Under Lorin Maazel, who held the position of chief conductor from 1993 to 2002, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra achieved a new level of playing culture, precision and flexibility. Like no other, Maazel is able to dispose large-scale works with confidence and to create emotional condensations in the music with a cool head, so that the effect is all the greater. The works presented here mark two key moments in Stravinsky’s compositional development in the period before the First World War. The ballet version of Firebird, which premiered in 1910, already contains much of what made the Sacre the scandalous avant-garde event in Paris in 1913: unheard of timbres, rapidly changing rhythms, orgiastic heightenings and exotic subjects. Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra a dream combination for Stravinsky’s sensual and rhythmically irresistible ballet works!