Stravinsky’s Les Noces went through many metamorphoses. The composer worked on the orchestration of this piece for some ten years, and produced three versions, all of which we have chosen to perform.

The 1923 version – the most frequently performed – was presented at the Paris Opera in February 2019 with Pontus Lidberg’s choreography.

It is the 1917 version which is presented here at the Philharmonie de Paris, with Les Siècles, conducted by François-Xavier Roth. The exceptional forces involved in this concert (85 musicians and 45 singers) allow us to enjoy this masterpiece of modernity in all its glory.

You may also want to hear the more intimate 1919 version which we perform with the Dominique Brun dance company.  This version, which was set aside because of the technical difficulties posed by the need to synchronise live musicians and mechanical instruments, was nonetheless considered the composer’s favourite, because the best adapted to the prosody and popular spirit of the work. This work is performed with an arrangement of Ravel’s Boléro for five instrumentalists and a 16 singers.

Les Siècles
Ensemble Aedes (Mathieu Romano, conductor)
François-Xavier Roth : conductor