180-gram 45 RPM double LP

Ernest Ansermet conducts the L’Orchestre De La Suisse Romande in the Stravinsky ballet Petrushka. Recorded Oct. 23 – Nov. 9, 1957, in Victoria Hall, Geneva.

Stravinsky initially conceived the music for Petrushka as a kind of burlesque combat between the piano and orchestra. The piano was to play the role of the puppet that exasperated the orchestra with its diabolical sequences. The accompanying orchestra was to retaliate in force leading finally to a climax in which the puppet collapses. The music that ultimately emerged elaborated a story of puppets that were actually more human than their puppetmaster ever imagined. Although the primitive rhythms and kaleidoscopic colors initially gave the conductor and ballet troupe difficulty, the work was premiered June 13, 1911.

Although Pierre Monteux conducted the premiere, Ernest Ansermet has always been closely associated with Stravinsky’s music. He was among Stravinsky’s circle of friends in Paris prior to World War I and first played excerpts from Petrushka in Geneva on January 12, 1915. This performance of Stravinsky’s Petrushka was recorded at Victoria Hall in Geneva between October and November of 1957. The Decca engineers, led by Roy Wallace, set up a tree with three Neumann KM-56 microphones. The signal was routed through a three-channel vacuum tube mixer, without noise processing or gain riding, to an Ampex stereo vacuum tube recorder.