Stravinsky: The Firebird album review – Rattle revels in colour, crackles and bites

Bavarian Radio SO/Rattle(BR Klassik)Simon Rattle has recorded the Russian master’s fairytale ballet twice before, but this version has considerable gains, not least in Rattle’s engaging half hour talk about itSimon Rattle and Stravinsky’s fairytale ballet go way back. A longtime staple of his repertoire, he recorded it with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the late 1980s, a 2017…