Oh, that is great. I listened to his recording of Daphnis Et Chloe and have never heard anything that can touch it. I used to think of Levine as more of an up-beat Mozart conductor, but he proved that he could rattle the house with his Holst Planets cd. I heard him say at a BSO conference that if the downloads did good, he would release them as cds.

Oh, that's great!

Not too many are aware, but when Sony Classical reissued Lenny's later 70's London Symphony Orchestra "Rite" on their Bernstein Century CD series some years back, it actually was the NY Phil. performance on the very earliest pressings. The mistake was audibly noticed by collectors practically overnight, and Sony quickly got the message that someone erred somewhere. They immediately ordered a corrected version which hit the streets not too long after. Unfortunately there is no way of physically determining if you have the error CD if its in your hand. It's all in the listening. It really should have been the earlier NY Phil performance that they should have reissued. The NY Phil performance did turn up on Sony's previous Bernstein Royal edition, which was in print for about 3-4 years in the late 80's-early 90's thereabouts. Yes, when that CD turns up on ebay or amazon, it is usually an arm and a leg for the asking. But I'd say if you put it in your ebay search engine or amazon want list, you might get lucky eventually with a fair price.

There are currently six used copies of Bernstein's NY Phil. "Rite" on amazon right now. Just type in Bernstein Stravinsky in the amazon search engine under classical music. You will see volume 86 of the Bernstein Royal Edition. This is the CD you want! You don't want the Bernstein Century CD, which contains the later LSO version.

When you go to amazon. This 86th volume of the Royal Edition should be the sixth CD pictured, starting as low as $6.95 for the first of six used copies. The first CD posted and The Benstein Century CD also posted are clones of one another. Both contain Bernstein's later version of "Rite" with the LSO.

I found that "Rite" as a pristine LP. I'll transfer it one day.

As CD, it's only been in Royal and Original Box.

Rhapsody has two releases of Rite paired with the Firebird that I assume are of the same performance: one on CBS Masterworks "Expanded Edition", and one from Sony Classical's "Bernstein Century" series. The album covers indicate that this is the 1919 edition of Rite, and have both LSO and NYPO listed as the orchestras, but Rhapsody doesn't tell me which is playing on each work. Does anyone know if this is the 1957 performance? If the photo of Bernstein on the cover is from the time of the recording, I would think not.

That was a great time for classical music in the US with many cities having excellent orchestras (Detroit, Minneapolis, etc.) . I highly recommend anything from that era on the Everest label. They pioneered the use of multichannel recording of classical music and the 20-bit digital releases are stunning to say the least! Mercury's "Living Presence" series used the same equipment purchased after Everest went OOB. "The Firebird" by Antal Dorati conducting the LSO is worth looking for.

The Rite is with the LSO, and is generally thought to be a drop from his earlier recording in New York.

Is this the recording which is excerpted in Carl Sagan's "cosmos"? Because that version sounded to me like the best, by far (at least the small excerpt from the sacrificial dance) of those that I've heard.