Four Norwegian Moods (1944) was originally composed for a Hollywood movie about the Nazi occupation of Norway. The composer never watched the film, but instead drew inspiration from a collection of folk songs he found in a used bookshop - the producers of the film, however, were left unconvinced. Stravinsky was not a man of compromise, so he revised the piece as an orchestral suite. Scherzo à la russe (1944) also started life as film music, but when this collaboration also failed, he first rescored it for a jazz ensemble and later for a full orchestra. The uniquely atmospheric Tango - an unorthodox Argentinian tango - was the first work that Stravinsky wrote entirely in the USA.
The real 'heavy artillery' comes out in the second half of the concert. The three-movement Symphony of Psalms (1930), written for chorus and orchestra, dates from Stravinsky's neoclassical period. Simultaneously predictable and mysterious, it transports the spirit with the power of the harmony between the chorus¬ and the orchestra. The 1913 première of Rite of Spring managed to cause a scandal and an uproar: the loud booing prevented the dancers and audience alike from hearing the music seething with mystical ceremonies, deadly religious rites, fertility dances and magical movements.

Presented by: Budapest Festival Orchestra