Album: Stravinsky, Le Sacre de Printemps - Berliner Philarmoniker/Rattle (EMI)

Stravinsky's 1913 ballet, The Rite of Spring, premiered to catcalls and fisticuffs.

One hundred years on, in Simon Rattle's new recording, it is the suavity of the score that startles, especially in Rattle's subtle use of rubato (stolen time) and the cool sensuality of the woodwind solos. Those woodwind players – currently vying with the principals of the Concertgebouw for the title of world's finest – shine again in Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments.