Music October 1982
Stravinsky: re-recording history
On endless re-recordings of masterpieces.
Not surprisingly, the present centennial of Igor Stravinsky’s birth has brought forth a variety of historical documentation on the composer’s life and work. Some of this documentation has extended as far as gala performances of the Russian master’s music: the Metropolitan Opera performed a Stravinsky triple bill, beginning with the Rite of Spring (1911-13), continuing with an opera, The Nightingale (1908-14), and concluding with the semi-staged oratorio, Oedipus Rex (1926-27). And commemorating its long association with the composer, George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet put on a Stravinsky Festival in June including some of the later and less appreciated compositions.
Major celebratory attention, however, was focused on Stravinsky’s career and life, the story of which comes to us again, as it has over the past generation, through the mind and...
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