Sunday Classics preview: In which we hear "The Firebird" come to its rousing close

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony play the "Infernal Dance" and "Berceuse" ("Lullaby," or "Cradle Song") from Stravinsky's Firebird.

by Ken

For our Stravinsky tidbit tonight, we have the utterly joyful little Scherzo à la russe, or Scherzo Russian-style, which sounds like it might date from the period of Fireworks (1908), which we heard in last night's preview, and The Firebird (1910), of which we heard some lovely chunks last night, but in fact was composed a good deal later, in 1944 -- and originally for jazz orchestra, specifically that of Paul Whiteman, who doesn't seem to have had much use for it, for reasons that may not be all that mysterious listening to it. The following year the composer produced the full-orchestra version we know.

The publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, provides this description: "An aborted film score, for a wartime story with a Russian setting, resulted in this Russian-sounding scherzo." Here's a student orchestra treading carefully through it:


Travis Jürgens conducts the University of Illinois Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's Scherzo à la russe, December 2008.


TO HEAR THE COMPOSER'S OWN SCHERZO À LA RUSSE
AS WELL AS TONIGHT'S FIREBIRD MUSIC, CLICK HERE

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