Les Noces was to have the longest gestation of all the works of Igor Stravinsky. The musical material was completed in 1917, but it took him six years to draw up the definitive orchestration of the piece. Though the 1917 version for chamber orchestra suffers from a lack of verifiable sources, this is no longer the case for the incredible 1919 version recorded here. Even Stravinsky himself considered this fragment superior in certain respects to the definitive version, because more authentic. In proposing this 1919 version for comparison with the --definitive- 1923 version, we see these two faces of one and the same work as astonishing proof of the composer's multifaceted genius.
Les Noces was to have the longest gestation of all the works of Igor Stravinsky. The musical material was completed in 1917, but it took him six years to draw up the definitive orchestration of the piece. Though the 1917 version for chamber orchestra suffers from a lack of verifiable sources, this is no longer the case for the incredible 1919 version recorded here. Even Stravinsky himself considered this fragment superior in certain respects to the definitive version, because more authentic. In proposing this 1919 version for comparison with the --definitive- 1923 version, we see these two faces of one and the same work as astonishing proof of the composer's multifaceted genius.