大象传媒

Donald Macleod presents tales of boozy escapades and Italian adventure as Stravinsky hits it off with the young Pablo Picasso - including a rare complete performance of Stravinsky's sung ballet Pulcinella.

Igor Stravinsky was one of the most brilliant, daring and influential musical thinkers of the early 20th century - a composer who forged new musical horizons and scandalised high society. But it wasn't always that way... Stravinsky was, in fact, a relatively late starter - no musical prodigy here - and his earliest musical works show no hint of the coruscating modernism that was to make him the most famous composer in the world. Instead, we find charming, witty and delightful music in the great Russian tradition of Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Mussorgsky - compositions often sadly overlooked in the great swirl of publicity that surrounded his trio of great ballets, The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite Of Spring. This week, Donald Macleod explores the world of "Young Igor", presenting a rare hearing of Stravinsky's fine early compositions and a selection of rarities as we follow the composer's development up to the end of the First World War. He also presents two rare and unusual versions of Stravinsky's iconic ballets: the Firebird in its original 1910 ballet suite, and an extraordinary - and acclaimed - new arrangement of Petrushka by the Mythos accordion duo.

By the end of the First World War, Stravinsky was in permanent exile. But that wasn't about to stop him having fun... Donald Macleod explores the riotous time Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso had in Italy when they met for the first time, as well as the shared interest in commedia dell'arte that sparked Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella. The programme is framed by a rare performance - in three excerpts - of the complete ballet (most usually heard in its abridged concert suite) allowing us to hear the brilliant sung arias.