Atmosphères - Notable Recent Performances

Notable Recent Performances

A 2006 performance of Atmosphères by the London Philharmonic was noted for its direct transition without interruption into Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which Sunday Times music critic Hugh Canning described as a "stroke of programming genius", continuing:

Jurowski preceded Stravinsky's Rite with Ligeti's static cloudscape, Atmosphères. Instead of presenting these seminal modernist works as separate items, Jurowski segued seamlessly from the nothingness of the Ligeti's close into the opening bassoon solo of the Stravinsky. The contrast between these two pieces—the Ligeti a study in motionlessness, the Stravinsky a convulsive eruption of movement—was only enhanced by Jurowski's device, making one listen with refreshed ears.

Edward Seckerson of UK's The Independent also described this segue as a "startling coup" while Richard Morrison of the daily edition of The Times noted that "Jurowski even kept a beat going, to fool us … so that Stravinsky’s bassoon emerged out of Ligeti’s wispy, endlessly drifting clouds of clusters."

Another recently acclaimed performance was that by Austria's Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra) performing in England, a performance described as "a focused reading" in which the conductor "Nott duly coerced a delicacy from each section of the orchestra—particularly the centrifugal strings—that gave a wonderful smoothness to the performance".