London Philharmonic Orchestra: The Rite of Spring

Beethoven Symphony No. 1
Thomas Larcher Violin Concerto
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Markus Stenz conductor
Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin
London Philharmonic Orchestra

One day in St Petersburg in 1910, Igor Stravinsky had a vision: ‘I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite; sage elders, seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death … sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring.’ When Stravinsky set his vision to music for the Ballets Russes three years later, the result was one of the most controversial and consistently electrifying pieces of music in history – a piece in which rhythm suddenly took priority over melody in a terrifying and unprecedented example of musical brutality. Markus Stenz conducts The Rite of Spring following Beethoven’s arresting First Symphony and the Violin Concerto written in 2008 with ‘cinematic logic’ by Thomas Larcher, and performed by the 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist of the Year, Patricia Kopatchinskaja.