L’Orchestre de la Suisse RomandeLondon Philharmonic Orchestra

Ernest Ansermet

STRAVINSKY – ANSERMETTHE FIRST DECCARECORDINGS

Petrouchka · Le Sacre du printempsL’Oiseau de Feu · Oedipus Rex · RenardSymphonie de psaumes · Circus PolkaDivertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la fée’

Eloquence

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)

CD 1 73’27

PetrouchkaPetrushka1911 versionRecorded 29-30 November 1949

1 Tableau I: Fête populaire de la Semaine grasse 10’04The Shrovetide Fair

2 Tableau II: Chez Petrushka 4’06Petrushka

3 Tableau III: Chez le Maure 7’35The Moor’s Room

4 Tableau IV: Fête populaire de la Semaine grasse, vers le soir 13’36The Shrovetide Fair (Evening)

Le Sacre du printempsThe Rite of SpringRecorded October 1950

5 Première Partie: L’Adoration de la terre 16’11The Adoration of the Earth

6 Deuxième Partie: Le Sacrifice 17’45The Sacrifice

7 Circus Polka 3’38Recorded March 1951

L’Orchestre de la Suisse RomandeErnest Ansermet

MONO RECORDINGS

CD 2 59’36

L’Oiseau de feu: Suite (1919)The FirebirdRecorded October 1950

1 Introduction 2’582 Danse de l’Oiseau de feu 1’35

Dance of the Firebird3 Khorovod (ronde) des princesses 3’59

Round Dance of the Princesses4 Danse infernale de tous les sujets de Kachtcheï 4’18

Infernal dance of all Kaschchei’s subjects5 Berceuse 3’18

Lullaby6 Finale 3’14

Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la fée’Divertimento from ‘The Fairy’s Kiss’Recorded March 1951

7 I Sinfonia 6’098 II Danses suisses 6’549 III Scherzo 3’500 IVa Pas de deux (Adagio) 4’34! IVb Pas de deux (Variation: Allegretto grazioso) & Coda (Presto) 2’23

@ Renard 16’01Recorded 8-16 October 1955 (Sung in French)

Michel Sénéchal, Hugues Cuénod, tenorsHeinz Rehfuss, baritoneXavier Depraz, bassIstvan Arato, cimbalom

L’Orchestre de la Suisse RomandeErnest Ansermet

1-! MONO RECORDINGS@ STEREO RECORDING

CD 3 74’48

Oedipus RexRecorded 15-16 May 1955Prologue

1 Spectateurs ! Vous allez entendre 0’53Narrator

Actus Primus2 Caedit nos pestis 3’54

Chorus3 Liberi, vos liberabo 2’46

Oedipus, Chorus4 Voici Créon 0’41

Narrator5 Respondit deus 3’27

Creon6 Non reperias vetus scelus 3’32

Oedipus, Chorus7 Œdipe interroge la fontaine de vérité 0’29

Narrator8 Delie exspectamus 2’15

Chorus9 Dicere non possum 3’03

Tiresias, Oedipus0 Invidia fortunam odit 2’55

Oedipus! Gloria! 1’43

Chorus

Actus Secundus@ La dispute des princes 0’49

Narrator£ Nonn’ erubescite, reges 4’48

Jocasta

$ Trivium, trivium… 0’31Chorus, Oedipus, Jocasta

% Le témoin du meurtre sort de l’ombre 1’27Narrator

^ Adest omniscius pastor 1’27Chorus, Messenger, Shepherd, Oedipus

& In monte reppertus est 5’40Shepherd, Messenger, Oedipus

* Et maintenant, vous allez entendre 1’21Narrator

( Divum Jocastae caput mortuum 3’20Messenger, Chorus

) Ecce! Regem Œdipoda 2’41Chorus

Ernst Haefliger, tenor (Oedipus)Hélène Bouvier, mezzo soprano (Jocasta)James Loomis, bass-baritone (Créon & Messenger)André Vessières, bass (Tiresias)Hugues Cuénod, tenor (Shepherd)Paul Pasquier, speaker (Narrator)Société Chorale du Brassus

Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la fée’Divertimento from ‘The Fairy’s Kiss’Recorded 15-18 May 1962

¡ I Sinfonia 6’27™ II Danses suisses 3’58# III Scherzo 3’58¢ IV Pas de Deux (Adagio – Variation – Coda) 7’06

L’Orchestre de la Suisse RomandeErnest Ansermet

1-) MONO RECORDINGS

¡-¢ STEREO RECORDING

CD 4 78’33

PetrouchkaPetrushka1911 versionRecorded 12, 13, 19 February 1946

1 Tableau I: Fête populaire de la Semaine grasse 9’44The Shrovetide Fair

2 Tableau II: Chez Petrushka 4’13Petrushka

3 Tableau III: Chez le Maure 7’20The Moor’s Room

4 Tableau IV: Fête populaire de la Semaine grasse, vers le soir 13’22The Shrovetide Fair (Evening)

L’Oiseau de feu: Suite (1910/1919)The FirebirdRecorded 10 December 1946

5 Introduction et Danse de l’Oiseau de feu 4’19Introduction and Dance of the Firebird

6 Khorovod (ronde) des princesses 3’53Round Dance of the Princesses

7 Danse infernale de tous les sujets de Kachtcheï 4’06Infernal dance of all Kaschchei’s subjects

8 Berceuse 3’26Lullaby

9 Finale 3’100 Scherzo: Jeu de princesses avec les pommes d’or 2’31

Scherzo: The princesses’ game with the golden apples

Symphonie de psaumesSymphony of PsalmsRecorded 14-17 October 1947

! I Psaume 38: Exaudi orationem meam, Domine 3’43@ II Psaume 39: Expectans expectavi Dominum 6’41£ III Psaume 50: Alleluia 11’30

London Philharmonic Choir (Chorus master: Frederic Jackson)London Philharmonic Orchestra / Ernest Ansermet

1-) MONO RECORDINGS

The recorded legacy of Ernest Ansermetrepresents an imposing body of work, createdover a period of more than 50 years. Itincludes practically all the orchestral worksand operas of Debussy and Ravel, manyrecorded twice over and more, as well as agreat deal of other French and Russian music,not to mention the standard Germanicrepertoire – Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn – thatAnsermet recorded in the latter part of hiscareer. No composer, however, is moreextensively represented than Igor Stravinsky:there are no fewer than 35 recordings of 23works, all but two recorded for Deccabetween 1946 and 1965; the first, the world-premiere recording of the Capriccio, with thecomposer as soloist, was made for Columbiain 1930, while the complete Firebird balletwith the New Philharmonia Orchestra wastaped in November 1968, only three monthsbefore the conductor’s death. It turned out tobe his final recording.

Ansermet and Stravinsky were almost exactcontemporaries. They met in 1912; Stravinsky,newly famous following the triumphalpremieres of The Firebird and Petrushka, wasliving in Switzerland, where Ansermet hadrecently become the conductor of the Kursaalorchestra in Montreux. The composer and the

conductor quickly became friends and for thenext two decades their lives and careers wouldbe inextricably linked: Stravinsky’s associateand sometime alter ego Robert Craft writes inthe introduction to his three-volume edition ofStravinsky’s correspondence, ‘The associationwith Stravinsky was the most important inAnsermet’s life, and the thirty-year-oldconductor was, with Debussy and Ravel, oneof the first musicians to recognize the youngcomposer’s true stature – that of the greatestcreative musician of his generation. From1915 through the mid-1920s, Ansermet wasnot only the principal conductor of, but alsothe most intelligent spokesman for,Stravinsky’s music. And Ansermet conductedmore Stravinsky premieres – Histoire du soldat(The Soldier’s Tale), the 1919 Firebird Suite[dedicated to Ansermet], The Song of theNightingale, Pulcinella, Renard, Les Noces, theCapriccio, the Symphony of Psalms, the Mass– and continued to give more performancesof the music than anyone other thanits composer.’

In 1915 Stravinsky recommended Ansermet toSergei Diaghilev, for whose Ballets Russes thethree great early ballets had been written, andAnsermet became Diaghilev’s chief conductor,the position that established his own fame.

The friendship proved beneficial to Stravinskyas well: in Montreux Ansermet gave him hisfirst opportunity to conduct his own music, ina performance of the early Symphony in E flat;following the Ballets Russes’s American tour in1916, Ansermet introduced Stravinsky to earlyjazz, and it was at Ansermet’s home thatStravinsky met the writer C.F. Ramuz, whobecame his collaborator on Les Noces, Renardand L’Histoire du soldat.

It was inevitable, however, that tensionsshould arise between the headstrongcomposer and the highly opinionatedconductor, particularly as Stravinsky’sincreasing activity as conductor threatenedAnsermet’s place as the foremost interpreterof his works, and these tensions exploded inan exchange of letters in October 1937:Ansermet insisted on making cuts to Jeu decartes in spite of Stravinsky’s harshly-wordedinsistence that the score be played complete.Stravinsky was still miffed a year later whenhe was invited to participate in a tribute toAnsermet celebrating the twentiethanniversary of his founding of the Orchestrede la Suisse Romande; when the project wascancelled, he wrote, ‘A good thing, because Iwas proposing to send my homages, not likethose in the Chroniques de ma vie [his

autobiography, written with Walter Nouveland published in 1935], but rather in the formof the fragments of Jeu de cartes thatAnsermet sees fit to omit in his performancesof the work.’

During World War II, however, whenStravinsky received another request tocontribute to an homage to Ansermet, heseemed to extend the olive branch, writing,‘Ansermet’s name is intimately associated withmy music, and I feel great gratitude to themusician who during so many years showedso lively an understanding of my musical ideasand brought them to life with as much talentas enthusiasm. ... The brevity of my wordsdoes not affect the sincerity of my sentiments.I want these lines to restore our oldrelationship. I send them with my mostaffectionate wishes for him, for his art, and forthe prosperity of his fine orchestra, which Ihad the privilege of seeing as it first came intothe world.’

The two men did reconcile after the War,although Craft reports that Stravinsky’sopinion of Ansermet had suffered irrevocably.For his part, Ansermet continued anuninterrupted advocacy for Stravinsky’s works– the 1948 premiere of the Mass being oneexample – although he became alarmed at the

directions taken by the composer in the1950s, particularly his turn to serialism in suchworks as the Canticum sacrum and Agon. In1961 Ansermet published his book Lesfondements de la musique dans la consciencehumaine (The Foundations of Music in HumanConsciousness), in which he argued thatmusic is, essentially, the expression of thecomposer’s feelings in tonal structures, andthat atonal and serial music violate the‘dialectical law of musical feeling’. He furtherelucidated his theory in a recorded lecture,‘What Everyone Should Know about Music’,in which he argues that the major and minortriads, and the diatonic (white-note) scale – forwhich he offers a highly idiosyncraticstructural model – must be the basis of anymusic that has the capability of expressinganything. These strongly-held convictions helpexplain, for example, Ansermet’s avoidance ofthe music of the Second Viennese School –except for a handful of works by Alban Berg,none of which he recorded commercially –and, of all French music after Ravel andRoussel.

Ansermet’s attitudes are further borne out byhis recordings of Stravinsky’s music. Of the 35items, only four are works composed after1930. Two of these represent Stravinsky’s

contributions to the most conservative ofgenres – the Symphonies in C and in ThreeMovements, respectively; the two others areminiatures – the Circus Polka and the Scherzoà la russe. Despite his attitude toward thecomposer’s current music, Ansermetcontinued in the 1950s and 60s to record andre-record his Stravinsky repertoire; in 1961 –the year Les fondements appeared – herecorded Les Noces, the Symphony of Psalmsand the Symphonies of Wind Instruments. In1966, the two seem finally to have made theirpeace with one another, Stravinsky writingmovingly, ‘We are both too old not to thinkabout the end of our days; and I would notwant to finish these days with the burden of apainful enmity’.

Ansermet’s stereo recordings of Stravinskywith his Orchestre de la Suisse Romande,beginning with the complete 1955 Firebird,are with two exceptions collected in an eight-CD box (Decca 467 8182). These two items(described below), together with all ofAnsermet’s pre-stereo Stravinsky recordingsfor Decca, form the contents of the presentset. Ansermet’s first Decca recording, in 1929,was a pioneering set of 78s comprising six ofHandel’s Op. 6 Concerti Grossi. His realrelationship with the company, however, can

Ernest Ansermet

PHOTO:

DECCA

Igor Stravinsky

be dated from 1946, when his recording ofPetrushka with the LPO – his first post-warrecording, and the first of his three versions ofthe score – helped establish the reputation ofDecca’s new FFRR recording technique; it stillsounds stunningly brilliant. The 1919 FirebirdSuite was taken down a few months later,followed in 1947 by the Symphony of Psalmsand, at the same sessions, Ravel’sorchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at anExhibition, which also quickly became anaudio sensation. Ansermet, however, wantedto record with his own orchestra, and sessionsin Geneva commenced in February 1947; thefirst Stravinsky recording with the OSR wasagain Petrushka, in late 1949, and its releasethe following year in the brand-new LP formatwas again hailed as a sonic triumph.Thereafter, all of Ansermet’s Stravinskyrecordings, with the exception of the 1968New Philharmonia Firebird, were made withthe OSR.

* * *Stravinsky possessed an extraordinary facultyfor continually reinventing himself. Just as hewas first a Russian, then a citizen of Franceand, finally, the United States, so he assumedin turn certain outward stylistic characteristicsthat caused critics to identify in his work a

‘Russian’ period, a ‘Neoclassical’ period, andso on; and yet, his voice was always uniquelyhis own. This is already apparent in the threegreat, early ballets; despite posterity’stendency to group them together, no passagefrom any of the three could be mistaken foreither of the others. The scenario of TheFirebird (1910) is the stuff of classic Russianfairy-tale, and the young Stravinsky’svoluptuous score is heavily influenced by themusic of his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. Theharmonies and sonorities of Petrushka (1911)are still brilliant, but much harder,characterized by startlingly new tonal clashesand the sounds of solo piano, percussion andwinds. The Rite of Spring (1913) inhabits itsown unique sound-world, evoking a primitiveritual with its rhythmic irregularities andunprecedented dissonances.

The Firebird and Petrushka met withimmediate and enthusiastic critical and publicapproval, and recordings soon followed.Stravinsky had prepared a concert suite fromThe Firebird soon after its premiere, and SirThomas Beecham recorded three excerptsfrom this suite in 1916 – his sole recording ofStravinsky’s music; Albert Coates recorded theentire suite in 1924-25.

Stravinsky had meanwhile prepared a new

suite in 1919, in the process reducing theorchestra from its extravagant original size tothe standard nineteenth-century formation.The 1919 suite shows how far Stravinsky’smastery of orchestral writing had advanced innine years; even with its more modest forces,the new version makes a superior effect. Therevised suite was rapidly incorporated into therepertoire of major orchestras worldwide: by1925, it had been recorded in Philadelphia byLeopold Stokowski and in Berlin by the Mahlerdisciple Oskar Fried; both remade theirrecordings within three years, after theintroduction of the electrical process in 1925.

Ansermet’s two recordings of the suite, takendown less than four years apart, make aninteresting comparison: there is littleinterpretive change, but the 1950 OSR isneither as rhythmically supple nor as tonallypolished as the 1946 LPO. Neither version,unfortunately, includes the atmospheric eight-bar transition from the Danse infernale to theBerceuse: Stravinsky clearly restored thispassage from the original ballet sometimeafter the suite’s publication; it appears as aninterpolated page in the undated Kalmusedition of the score. As the 1946 recordingtook five 78rpm sides, Ansermet recorded‘The princesses’ game with the golden apples’

from the original suite, as a sixth-side ‘filler’; itis appended here.

Petrushka also received an acoustic recording,by Eugene Goossens, as well as early electricversions by Coates and Stokowski. Theserecordings were quickly superseded byAnsermet’s, however. The American criticIrving Kolodin wrote of the 1946 version, ‘Formost listeners this album by Ansermet willremain a landmark in their experience ofrecorded music, as the first in Decca’s FFRRseries to match its splendors of reproducedsound with a performance of suitable artistryand authority’. Stravinsky’s revised edition of1947 – again, employing smaller orchestralforces – quickly became the more commonlyplayed version, but it was not yet availablewhen Ansermet made his LPO recording, andin the 1950 recording as well as his 1957stereo remake he maintained hispreference for the original 1911 score – withStravinsky’s blessing, given only to Ansermetand Pierre Monteux.

The premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913was conducted by Monteux, but it wasAnsermet who introduced it to the NewWorld in the Ballets Russes’s 1916 Americantour. He had been conducting it for over 30years, then, when he first recorded it in 1950,

the version given here. His two recordings arecharacterized by some unusually deliberatetempos, for example in the ‘Dance of theadolescent girls’ – no doubt, the result ofhis experience in conducting the piece inthe theatre.

Stravinsky’s compositions in the yearsfollowing The Rite share a number ofdistinctive traits, notably the use of unusualinstrumental combinations and the bending,or even reinvention, of genres. Bothcharacteristics are apparent in Renard,subtitled Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée,and composed in 1915-16. The work is scoredfor single woodwind, two horns, trumpet,percussion, and five solo strings pluscimbalom, a Hungarian form of hammereddulcimer most familiar from Kodály’s laterHáry János. Stravinsky and Ansermet had firstheard the instrument in a Geneva café, andStravinsky was taken with its sound, includingit also in the original version of Les Noces.There are also four singers – two tenors andtwo basses – but they do not specificallyrepresent the individual characters, and areplaced in the pit along with the orchestra. Apreface to the score directs that ‘The play isacted by clowns, dancers or acrobats,preferably on a trestle stage placed in front of

the orchestra. If performed in a theatre itshould be played in front of the curtain. Thecharacters remain on the stage the wholetime. … The actors do not speak.’

The story, from Russian folklore, concerns acock that is captured twice by the fox, only tobe rescued by the cat and the goat, whofinally strangle the fox. The present recordingof Renard has been something of an ‘orphan’:made in October 1955, it was issued in stereoonly in the US, on a 1958 London LP, and thisis its first appearance on CD.

Oedipus Rex, composed in 1926-27, bears thesubtitle ‘Opera-Oratorio in two acts afterSophocles’. Stravinsky decided to relateSophocles’s tragedy in Latin for its solemnityand universality; the French libretto by JeanCocteau was translated into Latin by JeanDanièlou. In order to make it practical for theaudience to follow the plot, Stravinskyemploys the device of a narrator, whosummarizes the events of each scene, inFrench, before its performance. Most of thecharacters are to wear masks and remainstationary; entrances and exits are managedby means of curtains or trap doors. Thisarrangement, the prominence of the chorusin setting up and commenting on the action,and the music itself give the work an

impression of monumentality, but also offormality or detachment.

The plot itself is highly concentrated, focusingon the climax and denouement of Sophocles’splay: Thebes is suffering from a plague, andthe oracle has decreed that in order for thecity to be saved, the killer of Laius, the king,must be discovered and driven from the city.Oedipus, who has vanquished the Sphinx andis now king, demands that the blind seerTiresias reveal what the gods have told him.At first Tiresias refuses to speak, but whenOedipus accuses him of being the murderer,Tiresias reveals that the king’s murderer isnot only in Thebes but is himself a king.Oedipus denounces Tiresias, accusing himof conspiring with Creon, brother ofQueen Jocasta.

In Act II the messenger and the shepherdarrive, revealing that Oedipus, having beenabandoned as an infant, had indeed killedLaius as foretold, and returning to Thebes hadmarried Jocasta, his mother. Jocasta, realizingthe truth, kills herself; only then does Oedipusunderstand his deeds, and in his horror heputs his eyes out with her brooch. The workends with the chorus, the citizens of Thebes,casting Oedipus out as demanded by thegods, with the words, ‘Farewell, Oedipus. We

loved you once’.

Ansermet’s recording of Oedipus Rex is a truerarity: it was made at the same sessions as hisfirst stereo Firebird in 1955, and released thefollowing year. When stereo LPs wereintroduced in 1958, The Firebird was quicklyissued in the new format. However,Decca executives must have decided that salesof Oedipus Rex did not warrant a stereorelease, and the stereo tape has unfortunatelynot survived.

The so-called Divertimento is actually asubstantial suite from Stravinsky’s 1928 ballet,Le Baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss). Stravinskyhad become increasingly estranged fromDiaghilev, and made the final break by writingthis work for the dancer Ida Rubinstein. Theballet is based on Hans Christian Andersen’stale The Ice Maiden. Written in homage toTchaikovsky, the score is based on variouspassages from his piano pieces and a fewsongs. Stravinsky uses these fragments in ahighly individual way, often extracting a brieffigure or phrase from his model and making itthe basis of a much longer section, eitherthrough variation or through simplerepetition. A good example is the passagefrom Tchaikovsky’s well-known HumoresqueOp. 10 No. 2, which, in Stravinsky’s scoring for

horns and bassoons, dominates the secondmovement of the suite, ‘Danses suisses’ in afashion that almost seems to anticipate themusic of more recent ‘minimalist’ composers.This is actually an example of a techniquefound throughout Stravinsky’s work, evenearly on: while the listener may not be awarebecause of Stravinsky’s skill in varying theharmonic or instrumental colour, the Finale ofthe Firebird, for example, is built almostentirely from multiple repetitions of the samefour-bar phrase.

Tchaikovsky was always a favourite ofStravinsky, who dedicated Le Baiser de la féeto his memory, calling its story an allegory inwhich the Fairy represents ‘the Muse [who]has similarly marked [him] with her fatal kisswhose mysterious imprint is felt throughoutthe work of this great artist’. Ansermetrecorded the Divertimento twice, in 1951 and1962. The latter version, along with the otherworks recorded in the same sessions – the twoSuites for Small Orchestra and the Four Etudes– was not issued in the UK until 1971; and,since Ansermet recorded the complete balletin 1963, the Divertimento was not included inDecca’s eight-CD set.

The Symphony of Psalms was one of severalworks commissioned by the Boston Symphony

Orchestra in 1930 in commemoration of its50th anniversary; the first performance,however, was conducted by Ansermet inBrussels, six days before the Boston premiere.The three movements are settings of portionsof Psalms 38, 39, and the whole of Psalm 150from the Vulgate, sung in Latin. Widelyacknowledged as a masterpiece of twentieth-century religious music, the work is notactually a symphony in any conventionalsense; Stravinsky may have given the piece itsname based on the fact that the commissioncalled for a ‘symphonic’ composition. Theperforming forces are again unusual: theorchestra omits violins and violas, and thelarge wind section omits clarinets. Stravinskydirects that the mixed choir should includechildren’s voices, with female voices used onlyif a children’s choir is not available. In the 1947recording given here, Ansermet uses thewomen of the London Philharmonic Choir.This recording had an unusual longevity in thecatalogues. It was first issued on three 78rpmrecords, subsequently transferred to a 10-inchLP, and reissued in 1954 on one side of a 12-inch LP, coupled with the 1950 version of theFirebird Suite. Ansermet’s stereo remake withL’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was issuedin 1961.

The Circus Polka, composed in 1942 on acommission from the Barnum and BaileyCircus, is subtitled ‘Composed for a youngelephant’; it was choreographed by GeorgeBalanchine! Any doubt that Stravinsky wrotethis little piece with his tongue firmly plantedin his cheek is allayed by the bombasticquotation from Schubert’s famous Marchemilitaire. The present recording, Ansermet’sonly version of the piece, was originally thesixth-side filler for the 78rpm issue of the1950 Firebird Suite; later it was transferred toa 10-inch LP along with other short pieces byDebussy, Ravel, and Prokofiev. It was last inprint in 1957.

Richard A. Kaplan

Recording producers: Victor Olof (Le Sacre du printemps, Circus Polka, Divertimento: 1951 recording,Petrushka: 1946 recording, L’Oiseau de feu: Suite: both recordings, Symphonie de psaumes, Oedipus Rex);James Walker (Renard); Michael Bremner (Divertimento: 1962 recording); unknown (Petrouchka:1949 recording)Recording engineers: Gil Went (Le Sacre du printemps, L’Oiseau de feu: Suite: 1950 recording,Circus Polka, Oedipus Rex); Arthur Haddy (Divertimento: 1951 recording); Roy Wallace (Renard,Divertimento: 1962 recording); Kenneth Wilkinson (Petrouchka: 1946 recording, L’Oiseau de feu:Suite: 1946 recording, Symphonie de psaumes); unknown (Petrouchka: 1949 recording)Recording locations: Kingsway Hall, London, UK, February 1946 (Petrouchka: 1946 recording),December 1946 (L’Oiseau de feu: Suite: 1946 recording), October 1947 (Symphonie de psaumes);Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland, November 1949 (Petrouchka: 1949 recording), October 1950 (LeSacre du printemps, L’Oiseau de feu: Suite: 1950 recording), March 1951 (Circus Polka, Divertimento:1951 recording), May 1955 (Oedipus Rex), October 1955 (Renard), May 1962 (Divertimento:1962 recording)Compilation: Pierre-Yves LascarEloquence cover image: attrib. Henri Matisse (reproduced by kind permission of Paul McGrath)Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-HomjiArt direction: Chilu · www.chilu.comBooklet editor: Bruce Raggatt

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