Dukas L'apprenti sorcier.

Stravinsky The Firebird. National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain / Christopher Seaman.

Pickwick IMP Classics (Mid  price) (Cassette) CIMPC921; (CD) PCD921 (59 minutes: DDD).

Stravinsky The Rite of Spring a. The Firebird b. a National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain / Simon Rattle; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Antal Dorati.

ASV Quicksilva (Mid  price) (Cassette) ZCQS6031; (CD) CDQS6031 (78 minutes: ADD). Item marked a from Enigma MID5001 (1/78), b Enigma VAR1022 (4/77).

The NYO's new Firebird under Christopher Seaman makes an interesting comparison with their 1978 Rite of Spring, conducted by the then 23-year-old Simon Rattle. He (who had played in the orchestra himself) realized that some allowances had to be made for the inexperience of the players and chose cautious speeds for such passages as the "Glorification of the Chosen One" and the "Sacrificial Dance". Seaman is similarly sympathetic where necessary, in the new Firebird, but Rattle aiso knew how to give judicious rein to his young players' exuberance, their enjoyment of being part of a huge noise-making machine, of pounding out rhythms with power as well as creditable precision. The result is a bit dense and noisy, and the recording is not especially wellfocused, but it has an infectious energy, a sense of discovering and vanquishing a legendarily difficult score, in a word a youthful quality, from which not a few more kempt, couth and shevelled readings could learn a thing or two.

There is less room to give the players their heads in Firebird, of course, and Seaman is very good at allowing the NYO to discover instead the pleasures of playing beautifully and very quietly: the Princesses' round-dance is charmingly phrased, there is a nicely eager quality to the excited "Dance with the Golden Apples" and the "Magic Carillon" is very precisely evoked. But surely the strings (rather backwardly placed, robbing the overall sound of effulgence) would have relished the ardour of the Prince's first sight of his Princess or the exotic headiness of the Firebird's pleas for freedom if Seaman had encouraged them to do so? Rather too often the music is undercharacterized; more disappointingly the particular qualities that young players might bring to it are under-exploited, and the performance is accomplished (lots of good solo contributions) but rather grey; the Dukas is more vital, with agreeably vociferous brass.

Dorati's Firebird, a generous but perhaps oddly chosen coupling for Rattle's Rite, has much more character and tension (though not much more voluptuousness), the recording, similarly, is bright and exciting but lacking in atmosphere. Neither disc competes with the best available versions of either work, but Rattle's Rite is a better souvenir of what the NYO can do than Seaman's Firebird.
MEO