Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring, Card Game, Concerto in D Major (A. Rahbari, R. Studt) (1995)

The Rite of Spring, with choreography by Nijinsky was first staged at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in May, 1913. The work had already caused considerable trouble in Dyagilev's ballet company. Nijinsky, the principal male dancer, in 1912 began to replace Fokin as choreographer, and with The Rite of Spring he tackled a formidable task, to provide a new kind of dance for a plot of primitive symbolism and energy, coupled with music of a very new kind. Stravinsky alleged a degree of musical incompetence in Nijinsky, who needed, he once claimed, to be taught the rudiments of the subject. Nevertheless the dancer was able to match the music with something equally original and startling. Neither music nor choreography proved in any way acceptable to the general public on the occasion of the first performance, although all had gone well enough in a preview before an invited audience of cognoscenti. At the first public performance there was an uproar, as members of the audience took sides for or against the piece. In spite of deafening and violent objections from many, the dancers and musicians continued to the end, although the music was inaudible. The result was, at least, a succes de scandale. In later years the music of the ballet was to exercise a strong influence over the course of twentieth century music, although Nijinsky's original choreography proved less durable.
Card Game consist of three deals, with the cards shuffled and then played, but action is complicated by the Joker, a card that should have no place in a poker game. Each deal is marked by the music that opens the ballet. In the first hand, with its rival sequences, one of the players is beaten and in the second the player holding the Joker, who assembles four aces, beats his opponent's four queens. In the final deal a sequence of spades, led by the Joker, is beaten by a royal flush in hearts. The first deal contains a pas d'action and Joker's Dance, the second a march for hearts and spades, variations for the queens and a pas de quatre, and the third a waltz-minuet, a battle for spades and hearts and a final dance of triumph, to celebrate the royal flush in hearts.
Stravinsky wrote his Concerto in D in response to a commission from Paul Sacher to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of his Basle Chamber Orchestra in 1946. The work was first performed by the orchestra in Basle on 27th January 1947. In three movements, the concerto opens with a bold introduction and a movement broadly in tripartite sonata-form, leading to a slow movement Arioso in a lyrical spirit later to become familiar in Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress. The final Rondo follows without a pause, continuing, as its title proclaims, in that highly characteristic form of neo-classicism that Stravinsky had made his own, at once identifiable by its melodic contours, harmonies, rhythmic figuration and structure.

Track listing
01. The Rite of Spring - Part I - The Adoration of the Earth (16:07)
02. The Rite of Spring - Part II - The Sacrifice (18:52)
03. Card Game - First Deal (5:26)
04. Card Game - Second Deal (9:58)
05. Card Game - Third Deal (8:29)
06. Concerto in D Major - 01 - Vivace (5:51)
07. Concerto in D Major - 02 - Arioso (2:44)
08. Concerto in D Major - 03 - Rondo (3:35)



Thx to Don Prospero