Rite Spring

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

"The last great father-figure of Western music" was how Leonard Bernstein eulogized Igor Stravinsky in 1972 before his homage concert in London a year after the composer's death. Stravinsky's works, he asserted, "sum up and embrace all of music itself - from primitive folk art to highly sophisticated serialism, from rarefied church music to outspoken jazz." In fact, Bernstein performed surprisingly few selections from Stravinsky's vast output, recording most of those for Columbia Masterworks and RCA Victor, yet they include some of his most indelible interpretations. And he also delivered eloquent and revelatory lectures on the composer.

This Naxos CD features absolutely outstanding performances of two of Stravinsky's most famous masterpieces: the Violin Concerto and the Rite of Spring. Robert Craft, longtime friend and associate of Stravinsky leads London's Philharmonia Orchestra in the most satisfying performance of the Rite of Spring I have ever heard. Craft utilizes the 1967 revisions made by Stravinsky and this surely affects many of the details of the score (though nothing that anyone but an expert will notice), which Craft pays such good care to bring out. Every last orchestral detail can be heard in this recording which features amazingly vivid hi-fi sound (yes, on a "budget" CD!).

This audio complement to "A History of Western Music" includes recordings of all the works appearing in "The Norton Anthology of Western Music". As in the previous edition, the recordings are of the highest quality and are performed by outstanding groups and soloists. New track references in the textbook allow students to locate the recorded works on the CD set as they read the corresponding discussions in the text. The collection features 20 new works, plus an additional 14 new recordings of works included in the previous edition