Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble
Orchestra of St Luke’s
Philharmonia Orchestra
Robert Craft, conductor


Stravinsky showed with his Symphony in C that great music could still be composed with the simplest means, recalling Beethoven’s achievement yet with his own rhythmic vitality, grace and refinement.

Also written during World War II, the Symphony in Three Movements reaches a martial conclusion enlivened by jubilant Latin American rhythms.

Secretly dedicated to his mistress, later wife, Vera de Bosset, the Octet was Stravinsky’s first completely neo-classical work and the happiest of his earliest pieces. In Dumbarton Oaks pays tribute to Bach’s 3rd Brandenburg Concerto.


"Musical line and clear projection are invariable Craft priorities and both in the Octet and in the post-Baroque Dumbarton Oaks Concerto the pulse is kept moving and the musical journey is always clearly directed with generally superb execution from the New York players. As ever with him, there's the feeling that the mind in charge knows exactly what this music is about...” Gramophone Magazine, March 2009