Stravinsky le Chant du Rossignol

Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971) is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential composers of the 20th century. The New Stravinsky Complete Edition (30 CD box set), the most complete survey of the composer’s works ever compiled, has been released to mark the 50th anniversary of his death.

Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971) is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential composers of the 20th century. The New Stravinsky Complete Edition (30 CD box set), the most complete survey of the composer’s works ever compiled, has been released to mark the 50th anniversary of his death.

The years have seen Pierre Boulez record for CBS, Erato, EMI, and Philips, among other labels, but his most consistent and critically praised work has appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, where he has conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and his own Ensemble InterContemporain in many successful performances. These ensembles are heard on this trimline, six-CD box set of Igor Stravinsky's major works, which brings together Boulez's recordings of L'oiseau de feu, Petrushka, Le Sacre du printemps, L'histoire du Soldat, the symphonies, concertos, and other works, recorded between 1980 and 1996. As one of the leading champions of modernism, first as a composer and essayist, then as a prominent conductor, Boulez is regarded as an authority on Stravinsky's oeuvre, and it is difficult to imagine many conductors who have a better understanding of the technical and stylistic issues that affect performances. Boulez is also famous for his precision and meticulousness, which make the details stand out clearly in the rhythmically complex and texturally dense orchestral scores of the ballets, and yet seem so delicate and exact in the concertos and pieces for smaller ensembles.

Riccardo Chailly had been anointed by Decca as their resident modernist before he rose to be director of the Royal Concertgebouw, and in some ways these early recordings are still his freshest. This Stravinsky compilation, part of a wide-ranging cycle of the composer's works, all in wonderful sound and played far better than on any version led by the composer, dates from 1984.

Exploring 20th-century repertoire – both acknowledged masterpieces and new discoveries – this 14-CD anthology reflects the diverse aesthetic strands of Pierre Boulez’s programming over the course of his ground-breaking and influential career. These Erato recordings, made between 1966 and 1992, feature composers otherwise absent from Boulez’s discography – Xenakis, Donatoni, Grisey, Dufourt, Ferneyhough, Harvey and Höller – and the first CD release of the interpretation of Stravinsky’s incantatory Les Soucoupes in the version for female voices and four horns.

Alexey Zuev has a very special relationship with Stravinsky’s music. From the age of seven, it entered his musical universe like a premonition, when he unknowingly ‘composed’ a piece that bore astonishing similarities to Petrushka . Five years later, he discovered the ‘real’ Stravinsky and his music never left him.