Stravinsky: Le rossignol (Sung in Russian)

Featuring

Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Mojca Erdmann
Evgeny Akimov
Marina Prudenskaya
Vladimir Vaneev
Tuomas Pursio

Fyodor Kuznetsov
Mayram Sokolova
Joachim Streckfuss
Hee-Kwang Lee
Katrin Wundsam
Hans Christoph Begemann
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
WDR Rundfunkchor Köln
Igor Stravinsky

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Composition History

Stravinsky's Pribaoutki and Chansons de Paul Verlaine were originally conceived for his younger brother Gury, a trained baritone, who was killed in military service in 1917.

Composer Biography

Igor Stravinsky, the composer, was the son of a St. Petersburg opera singer and never forgot the songs and poems of his childhood.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Stravinsky's Le Rossignol contrasts the bombastically exotic world of the emperor's court with the purity of the nightingale, reflecting the moral that true art needs no artificial embellishment.

Compositional Technique

The two musically distinct worlds in Le Rossignol, representing nature and the palace, resulted from a prolonged break in composition, during which Stravinsky's musical idiom changed significantly.

Compositional Technique

Stravinsky made a virtue of the stylistic differences in Le Rossignol by consciously contrasting the expressive levels, using 'dainty pentatonic figures' for the palace and 'smoothly flowing melodies' for nature.

Performer Biography

Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the conductor, began his career as a violinist before studying conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

Composition History

Stravinsky began composing Le Rossignol in 1908, influenced by his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov, but by its completion in 1913, he had achieved international renown.