Rite of Spring audio demo (finally!)

Igor Stravinsky

Well, finally I have an actual musical example to post on my blog since the Columbus Symphony's Rite of Spring has finally been uploaded onto InstantEncore.  I wrote about preparing Stravinsky's Rite of Spring a couple of months ago, but at that time I had no audio clips of my own playing to include.  (I did attempt to record a YouTube video for that post, but I rejected each video as being flawed in some way.  All was not lost, however, because that effort was extremely beneficial in my preparation for playing the solos in the orchestra....) 

If you happen to listen to this recording beyond the opening bassoon solos, you will hear strange extraneous noises which almost sound like musicians tapping their feet.  In fact, those are the sounds of the dancers of BalletMet Columbus who performed with us.  The orchestra was on stage, not in the pit, and the dancers were in front of us.  (Unfortunately, the musicians were way too busy to be able to observe the excellent dancing......)  If it seems odd that we performed the Rite with dancers, bear in mind that it was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes.  

Ballet Russes by August Macke, 1912

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