Russia / USA, 1967, orchestral / modern classical
Igor Stravinsky – Stravinsky Conducts Firebird Suite: Have you ever watched the way a bird moves? The way it turns its head or preens its feathers or walks or hops or flies or flutters its wings? Every move is sharp, quick, and deliberate. No lazy half-movements like we humans often make. Every move is precise. That’s the way this music sounds, and when it doesn’t–when the clarinets and violins make for us a nest–well that is where the bird settles down to peaceful repose for a while. Look how its breast rises and falls! But the bird will animate once again, sure as the bold tuba and timpani dawn, sure as the phoenix from its own ashes.
Music that is at once both dramatic and powerful, while simultaneously expressing a delicate fragility.
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