In his Symphony of Psalms, Igor Stravinsky combined the archaic ritual power that marked his music ever since the Rite of Spring with a neo-classical sense of order and clarity.

Stravinsky’s masterpiece seems to gaze out at us with the imperturbable peace of a Russian Orthodox icon. Olivier Messiaen compared his first orchestral work, Les offrandes oubliées, to an altar triptych: the cross, sin and the Eucharist. The 22-year-old composer demonstrated that he was the heir of master orchestrators such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, whose music Michel Tabachnik succeeded easily in juxtaposing with the work of Messiaen. The “lever du jour” with which the second suite of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé opens is among the most impressive orchestral nature painting of the entire musical repertoire.

Coprod. Flagey, Brussels Philharmonic, Festival Vlaanderen Brussel - KlaraFestival