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"(The playing) is in many ways marvellous, with a good sense of pace throughout ... recorded sound is sensational ... there is much excellent music making ..." - BBC Music Magazine "Litton allows (The Firebird) more delicacy than some of its later interpreters, to its great advantage in such moments as the very opening ... it is all beautifully played, not least thanks to a woodwind section of players who really listen to one another." - Gramophone "... Litton’s previous disc (was sensational) and this Firebird is just as fine ... the Infernal Dance is brilliantly played, with exciting, hard-hitting rhythms. Indeed, Litton’s control of rhythm, allied to remarkably clear textures even in the most thickly scored passages, is what keeps the music flowing effortlessly ... you have to hear the performance whole. The couplings also are very imaginative and a welcome change from the usual short Stravinsky items ... as with The Firebird, the performances are ideal: ideally paced, limpid in texture and immaculately played ... captivating programming. As usual with recordings from this source, the engineering is state of the art. A great disc." - ClassicsToday.com Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra won awards and international praise in 2011 for a previous Stravinsky recording; this follow-up a year later was equally acclaimed. In addition to The Firebird, the programme includes Stravinsky's orchestrations of two Chopin piano compositions and arrangements of pieces by Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, ending with Stravinsky’s tongue-in-cheek 1955 Greeting Prelude for the 80th birthday of Pierre Monteux, the conductor who led the world premieres of both Petrushka and The Rite of Spring some 40 years earlier.