Vladimir Jurowski
is gone as conductor of the
London Philharmonic
, but with material already in the can, much of it doubtless from the orchestra's own live archives, his recording era there has hardly concluded. This 2022 release looks like the beginning of a large
Stravinsky
cycle, and it contains a
Rite of Spring
from as far back as 2008, recorded at Royal Festival Hall. The justification for bringing out something so old is that it is an unusually strong performance of this much-recorded work, replacing the usual pounding in the heavily rhythmic passages with big arcs that are well controlled throughout, and superb work in the orchestra. The rest of the performances are from 2018, and
The Firebird
is also nicely done, with a fine sense of the work's suddenly huge scope. The real attraction here, though, is on the first CD of the physical set, featuring some little-known, early
works that are not so commonly heard. The
Symphony in E flat major, Op. 1
, is in the mold of
Glazunov
, but who could hear the angular themes (try the first movement) and not suspect that something big was up? There's a lot of
Tchaikovsky
in
The Faun and the Shepherdess, Op. 2
, but with the
Scherzo fantastique, Op. 3
, one is on the brink of the revelations to come. The
Funeral Song, Op. 5
, is especially rare; it was performed once and forgotten until 2015.
Jurowski
has a lot of fun with these early pieces, which will have a strong attraction for hardcore Stravinskyites, but the entire album is a success, conveying a good deal of the urgency of live performance. ~ James Manheim