Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; Firebird Suite; Scherzo; Tango(plays on ALL CD Players) [Hybrid SACD, SACD]

Ivan Fischer's new Rite of Spring is lean and hungry, razor-sharp and matches his description of it: "fresh, pagan, scary, new and beautiful. --Observer

Often regarded as the starting point of modern music, Stravinsky's Rite will mark 100 years of uninterrupted performance next year, now more often heard in the concert hall and on record than it is seen on stage as a ballet. Even today, it is easy to imagine the uproar it caused at its premiere on May 29, 1913, perhaps the most notorious music-theatre scandal of the 20th century, when pro and contra factions made their own vocal contributions, which erupted into physical violence and made its composer an overnight celebrity,a household name alongside his famous collaborators, the impresario Diaghilev and the dancer/choreographer Nijinsky. Although Stravinsky may have exaggerated the extent to which his music, rather than Nijinsky's choreography, which has not survived the test of time,caused this famous riot, The Rite of Spring remains a seismic event in the history of music, still astounding in a performance as gripping and as powerful as this live account by Fischer's BFO. These Hungarians manage the remarkable feat of making this familiar music sound ever fresh and new. I love Fischer's chamber-music textures in Dances of the Adolescent Girls, and his Dance of the Earth sounds positively volcanic. The couplings are generous: Fischer favours the 1919 Firebird Suite over the complete ballet. It is ravishingly played, and there are two encores , the 1944 symphonic version of Scherzo à la Russe and the 1940 orchestration of Tango No 72. --Hugh Canning,Sunday Times

I can still feel the tingle generated by Iván Fischer's breathtaking account of Mahler's Symphony No 1 with his Budapest Festival Orchestra at last year's Proms. It was,on that night, the best orchestra on the planet, alive to every nuance in the score, the sounds admirably blended yet dancing with individual colour. The team's present all-Stravinsky disc cannot deliver the same intense electric shock; we need a live performance for that. But it certainly makes your speakers shake, especially during the 20th century's most famous bone-rattler, The Rite of Spring, 100 years old next year. The rather fruity acoustic of the orchestra's usual recording venue, Budapest's Palace of Arts, adds a memorable depth of resonance to the timpani thwacks and rampaging brass in Stravinsky's revolutionary score. This is one of the earthiest, most pagan accounts of the ballet around. It's also one of the most carefully considered whenever Stravinsky writes in a slow tempo. The Spring Rounds of Part One carry a heavy weight, as the score directs, but they're also sensuous, thanks to Fischer's phrasing and the Budapest woodwinds dark glow.There's a fetching languor too about the introduction to Part Two. Whenever the music jerks into high gear the notes cascading, polyrhythms jabbing the contrast is doubly thrilling. Fischer in the booklet writes of the Rite as still sounding fresh, pagan,scary,new and beautiful after its century of life. All the adjectives can certainly be applied to this ear-stretching interpretation. Following that, Fischer offers the suite Stravinsky extracted in 1919 from his first ballet, The Firebird. Chronologically the order should have been reversed; and it's hard at first to settle to this more picturesque score after the Rite's bombardments. But the vigour and vivid colours of Fischer's account soon win you over, making you wish you were hearing the ballet complete, not chopped into seven short sections. Instead, the disc is filled out with two lightweight footnotes from the 1940s: the Scherzo à la Russe, delivered with a nice loping gait, and the orchestral version of Stravinsky's piano Tango a light, tight, smoky piece that gets smudged in the Palace of Arts acoustic. Buy this CD for The Rite of Spring; and before you play it, warn the neighbours. --Geoff Brown ,The Times

CHN 32112; CHANNEL CLASSICS - Olanda; Classica Orchestrale