CUT AT 45RPM FROM THE ORIGINAL DECCA STEREO MASTER TAPES

Pressed at Pallas on 180g virgin vinyl, these limited-edition deluxe gatefold releases will feature: the original artwork and liner notes; archival photos and facsimiles of original recording session sheets. Each individual release includes bespoke notes detailing the history of the recording, the technical background and the mastering process.

Solti once likened the city of Chicago and its illustrious orchestra to a “sleeping beauty” when he arrived as music director in the autumn of 1969. It was the name of another ballet – Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring – which was to reveal just how incendiary the new relationship had become within five years in a recording which still hurls itself out of the loudspeakers half a century after it was made. The recording of Rite was made in a single session on 14th May 1974, in Medinah Temple, Chicago, Decca’s favoured venue at that time.

For this all-analogue mastering from the original, edited two-track stereo master, Rainer Maillard at Emil Berliner Studios has chosen to master the LP to play at 45rpm — the original LP was 33⅓ — in order to secure a better high frequency response and recapture the full “fury and clarity” of the original recording.

“Glamorous and powerful, this is obviously a version of Stravinsky's great score to be taken very seriously indeed... Solti’s version takes an honourable place in a highly competitive list.” — Gramophone, 1974

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)

Side A: Part I – L’adoration de la terre
Side B: Part II – Le sacrifice