Just in case anyone else felt minded to replicate this Rite of Spring project, the packaging prints an admonitory sentence: ‘The 1967 edition published by Boosey & Hawkes remains the sole authorised edition for general performance.’ David Zinman and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra couple that permissible version here with Stravinsky’s original score of 1913, which differs in all manner of details, both textural and instrumental. Ideally one would have both discs playing simultaneously to identify precisely where all the changes lie; but, if you have the definitive score in your head, the earlier one certainly sounds different enough to make comparisons worthwhile and to lend this venture a purpose.

The best course is perhaps to turn first of all to tr 17 on the second disc, where Zinman is interviewed (in English, and then translated into German) about various points such as the less brutal down-beats in the ‘Danse des adolescentes’ in the first version as compared with that of 1967. All sorts of other changes were made either in the interests of intensifying the savagery or of enhancing the clarity of definition. Zinman worked with Pierre Monteux, who conducted the famously turbulent premiere of The Rite of Spring on that momentous night of May 29, 1913. Through his connections he traces a direct line back to the time when the ballet was new, and his perceptive conducting here makes for a thoroughly musical as well as a fascinating documentary set, supplemented by a wealth of information in the booklet.