Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Vasily Petrenko and his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have built up a fine rapport over their years together and they’ve a particularly winning way with Russian music. Here, Stravinsky’s great ballet score, which digs deep into primeval emotions, receives a thrilling performance, full of detail and high-octane energy. It does what the work absolutely requires of its performers: to sound utterly fresh and original, and therefore shocking. Two other spring works add context: Rachmaninov’s cantata, where spring heals and cures, and Debussy’s two-movement suite, where Henri Büsser’s later orchestration gives this early piece an authentically Debussian sound world.