Utwory na płycie:

• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Introduction
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Night. Kastchei's Enchanted Garden
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Stravinsky: The Firebird enters, pursued by Ivan Tsarevich
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Stravinsky: The Firebird's Dance
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Ivan Tsarevich captures Stravinsky: The Firebird
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Stravinsky: The Firebird begs to be released
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Entrance of the Thirteen Enchanted Princesses
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: The Princesses play with the golden apples (Scherzo)
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Ivan Tsarevich appears
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: The Princesses' Khorovod (Round Dance)
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Daybreak
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Magic Carillon - Appearance of Kastchei's Guardian Monsters - Capture of Ivan Tsarevich
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: The entrance of Kastchei the Immortal
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Dialogue between Kastchei and Ivan Tsarevich
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: The Princesses plead for mercy
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene I: Stravinsky: The Firebird enters
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Dance of Kastchei's retinue under Stravinsky: The Firebird's magic spell
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Infernal Dance of Kastchei and his subjects under Stravinsky: The Firebird's magic spell
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Stravinsky: The Firebird's Lullaby
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Kastchei awakens
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 1: Kastchei's death
• Stravinsky: The Firebird - Scene 2: Kastchei's spell is broken, his palace disappears, and the Petrified Knights return to life. General Thanksgiving
• Stravinsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra) - Act III: Bluebird Pas de deux: Adagio
• Stravinsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra) - Act III: Bluebird Pas de deux: Variation 1: Tempo di valse
• Stravinsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra) - Act III: Bluebird Pas de deux: Variation 2: Andantino
• Stravinsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra) - Act III: Bluebird Pas de deux: Coda - Con moto
• Sibelius: Canzonetta, Op. 62a (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra)
• Chopin: Nocturne No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 32, No. 2 (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra)
• Chopin: Waltz No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 18, "Grande valse brillante" (arr. I. Stravinsky for orchestra)
• Stravinsky: Greeting Prelude

Igor Stravinsky:
L’Oiseau de feu (The Firebird) – 1910 Ballet Score Greeting Prelude

Stravinsky’s orchestrations and arrangements of:
Tchaikovsky:
Pas-De-Deux (L’Oiseau bleu – Bluebird)

Sibelius:
Canzonetta, Op.62a

Chopin:
Nocturne in A flat major, Op.32 No.1

Chopin:
Grande Valse Brillante, Op.18

The Firebird was Igor Stravinsky’s first full-length ballet, but not his first collaboration with Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. In 1909, a year before the triumphant premiere of The Firebird, the charismatic impresario had commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate two piano compositions by Chopin for use in another project. Evidently pleased with the result, he invited the young composer to write the music for the next production of his ballet company, to a scenario based on various well-known Russian fairy-tale characters. The score holds several moments that recall Scriabin, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky’s teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, but the mature Stravinsky is already present in the superb orchestral craft and the vivid rhythmic imagination. Rather than either of the two suites which Stravinsky later prepared, Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra have chosen to record the original ballet score, allowing us to relish the enormous range of colours springing from what the composer later described as a ‘wastefully large’ orchestration. Soon after The Firebird, Stravinsky went on to influence the direction of music with Petrushka and The Rite of Spring – two scores which appear on a recent release with the same performers. That much acclaimed disc was short-listed for a 2011 Gramophone Award, named Editor’s Choice in Classic FM Magazine, and selected as Disc of the Month by the websites Classics Today and Classics Today France, and the recording itself was praised on a par with the interpretation and playing, with the reviewer in International Record Review describing ‘the efforts of the BIS recording team’ as ‘truly magnificent’. The present disc includes not only The Firebird, but also the above-mentioned Chopin orchestrations, as well as arrangements of pieces by Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, ending with Stravinsky’s tongue-in-cheek 1955 Greeting Prelude for the 80th birthday of Pierre Monteux, the conductor who had given the world premieres of both Petrushka and The Rite of Spring some forty years earlier.