Bernstein’s recording of Les noces (the wedding) includes an unusual instrumentation of four piano’s, percussion and chorus. Stravinsky composed it in 1917, but then changed his mind several times about its instrumentation. It took six years to finally settle on this. It was written for the famous enfant terrible Sergei Diaghilev, and premiered by his very own company, the Ballet Russes in Paris.
Like many of Stravinsky’s early 20th century ballets for Diaghilev, the title is in French, even though the work itself, and the story it tells, is in Russian. He did the same with Le sacre du printemps, Petrouchka and l’Oiseau de feu. The French was better understood by the Paris audience, and was even considered the international language of choice at the time. I’ve never realised this is the case to be honest. It is this title that made me aware of it.