Stravinsky: L’Oiseaude feu (original1910 version)

The Firebird was the score that launched Igor Stravinsky.

Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes and choreographed by Michel Fokine, it fused two Russian folk tales — the glowing Firebird and the immortal ogre Kashchei — into a spectacular “total work of art” that dazzled Paris at its 1910 première and made its twenty-seven-year-old composer famous overnight.

Ryan Bancroft conducts the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in the complete original 1910 ballet, from the shadowy Introduction through the Infernal Dance to the radiant final rejoicing — a richer, more expansive experience than the later concert suites.

It is early Stravinsky at his most vivid and enchanting.