With the commission for the ballet The Firebird, Sergei Diaghilev helped launch Stravinsky’s career and his status as a renowned composer. Although the typical Stravinsky sound can already be detected, this work was not yet truly revolutionary. The Parisian audience immediately embraced it at its première in 1910. Could the romantic story have something to do with this? The same romanticism inspired Arnold Schönberg when composing Verklärte Nacht, as well as Chopin in his Second Piano Concerto, interpreted by the unique Ivo Pogorelich.

Flagey, Brussels Philharmonic