Serious Stravinskians will want The Firebird and Pulcinella complete, perhaps Le baiser de la fee also, but the collector looking for a decent cross-section of his earlier music for dance (therefore not including, however, any sample of his longest and most fruitful choreographic collaboration, that with George Balanchine) will find this generous collection attractive. For a conductor of dance music Temirkanov has, so to speak, a way of using his heels as often as his toes: there is a lovely sense of mystery and allure to his Firebird and a real Tchaikovskian grace to his Divertimento, but there are momentary touches of heavy articulation in both works. One would scarcely notice this, perhaps, if he did not also show a rather consistent preference for speeds slightly slower than usual and a marked fondness for rubato. The former aids generally excellent balancing of Stravinsky's orchestra and the effect of the latter is often exquisite, but there is just a slight impression that the Princesses in The Firebird are dancing their khorovod in a trance, and why is the first of the gavotte variations in Pulcinella so very much slower than its theme?
Crisp and vital though he can be (in the outer movements of the Divertimento, for example, and there is real attack to Kastchei's ''Danse Infernale'') it seems that Temirkanov is happiest when relaxing into Stravinsky's lyrical vein (so The Firebird's berceuse is beautifully tender, then richly lush); since that vein predominates in all three works one should not perhaps complain too bitterly, but a little of the music's vitality has been lost, too. If the coupling attracts you this single drawback may well be outweighed by the performances' advantages; they include characterful and precise orchestral playing and an incisive recording.'