The Rite of Spring too polished, a pet savage rather than a real one". Stravinsky thought that Pierre Boulez, with the Orchestre National de France (1963), was "less good than I had hoped ... very bad tempi and some tasteless alterations". He praised a 1962 recording by The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra for making the music sound Russian, "which is just right", but Stravinsky's concluding judgement was that none of these three performances was worth preserving. As of 2013 there were well over 100 different recordings of "The Rite" commercially available, and many more held in library sound archives. It has become one of
The Firebird While hunting in the forest, he strays into the magical realm of Koschei the Immortal, whose immortality is preserved by keeping his soul in a magic egg hidden in a casket. Ivan chases and captures the Firebird and is about to kill her; she begs for her life and he spares her. As a token of thanks, she offers him an enchanted feather that he can use to summon her should he be in dire need. Prince Ivan then meets thirteen princesses who are under the spell of Koschei and falls in love with one of them. The next day,