Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps / Eötvös: Alhambra Concerto

Apr 9, 2021

Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is presenting his new album, Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps, Eötvös: Alhambra Concerto with harmonia mundi, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Igor Stravinsky. In this latest recording, Heras-Casado conducts one of the great works of the 20th century, Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) and the first recording of Alhambra, the third violin concerto by the Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös with soloist Isabelle Faust. The Stravinsky masterpiece that opens the CD, premiered on May 29, 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs Elysee in Paris, is a monumental work, a compendium of diverse dances portraying the pagan ceremonies of Slavic cultures and tribes in prehistoric times as they welcome the arrival of spring. The score uses an extremely innovative musical language, polytonal and polyrhythmic in character. Eötvös, one of the most outstanding composers of contemporary music, created his Alhambra Concerto as a commission for the Granada Festival (co-commission with BBC, Orchestre de Paris and Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker) is dedicated to violinist Isabelle Faust and Pablo Heras-Casado. As the composer himself says, Alhambra is the “intersection of Spanish and Arabic culture”. A poetic and intimate work that evokes the famous palaces and gardens of Granada, which had already inspired Manuel de Falla in the first part of his Nights in the Gardens of Spain. World premiere by Isabelle Faust and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra during the closing of the International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada.

The recording of the album was made in July 2019 together with the Orchestre de Paris and from today is available on all digital and streaming platforms. 

For more information, visit the harmonia mundi website.

“Heras-Casado offers much more than maths, including sinuous, wailing woodwinds” – The Times.