Russian ballet scores| London Philharmonic Orchestra

One day in 1911, Igor Stravinsky was writing a simple piano piece when he was hit by an idea: a piano, representing the Russian folk puppet Petrushka, which would suddenly spring to life and ‘exasperate the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios’. This was the starting point for his big stylistic breakthrough: the haunting ballet Petrushka in which Stravinsky would depict his homeland with ‘quick tempos, major keys, smells of Russian food, sweat and glistening leather boots’. It’s heard here against the more luscious piano-orchestral soundscape of Magnus Lindberg’s Second Piano Concerto, given its UK premiere this evening, and excerpts from Prokofiev’s own satirical ballet for Diaghilev, Chout (The Buffoon).