Video: Stravinsky conducts ‘The Firebird’

Stravinsky conducts the last three scenes of his own “Firebird” with the New York Philharmonic in 1960. After a bit of a slow start, this is a very nice performance, with considerable heat. Stravinsky didn’t have a strong conducting technique, but he knew how to get what he wanted. Notice the ending — he gets the most out of the final brass peroration and that marvelous “lift” of the fourth to last chord. Leonard Bernstein gives the intro.