Donald Macleod presents the tuneful, highly "Russian" scores that led to Stravinsky's breakthrough work, The Firebird - including a rare performance of its original 1910 ballet suite.

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.

Continuing his exploration of the music of "Young Igor", Donald Macleod today presents a tuneful series of works overlooked in the melee of publicity that surrounded the premiere of Stravinsky's huge early success, the ballet "The Firebird". These include a trio of charming songs, "The Faun And The Shepherdess", and two Poulenc-esque compositions that seem to look forward to the cool neo-classicism of the 1920s. We end with a rare outing for the original 1910 suite from The Firebird - full of spectacular moments of orchestration that the composer later revised and reigned in in the versions usually heard in the concert hall. Show less