‘Wastefully large’, Stravinsky notoriously came to label his original orchestration of The Firebird in the 1910 ballet recorded here, but by then he had a new agenda for preferring the suites he later prepared. It remains a magical score, both in the sense of embodying a fantastic fairy tale and as a piece of orchestral wizardry to bewitch the ear and the imagination. Andrew Litton allows it more delicacy than some of its later interpreters, to its great advantage at such moments as the very opening with the string harmonic glissandos and especially in the less familiar scenes between the more famous numbers; all of this is well caught by an attentive recording. If Kashchey has sounded more formidable in the hands of others (including the composer himself), Litton gives the old sorcerer a spectral quality that is at least as sinister. It is all beautifully played, not least thanks to a woodwind section of players who really listen to one another.

The fill-ups are a curious lot. The Tchaikovsky Pas de deux is affectionately faithful to the spirit of a composer Stravinsky loved dearly. The two Chopin arrangements were for performances of what became Les Sylphides and here the ‘arranger’ shoves his oar in with some rather showy accompaniments that had the desired effect of showing off to Diaghilev. The Sibelius Canzonetta is a real oddity, made in 1963 as acknowledgement of the Wihuri Sibelius Prize, set out for eight instruments (clarinets, horns, harp and bass) and sounding not much like either composer. As for the Greeting Prelude: this is the hilariously eccentric arrangement of ‘Happy birthday to you’ (originally for Pierre Monteux) with which orchestras liked to catch Stravinsky out if he happened to be conducting them on his own birthday and was expecting quite a different work when he brought his baton down.