Stravinsky's Symphony in 3 Movements

Jonathan Cross compares recordings of Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in 3 Movements and picks a favourite.

The first movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements began life as a piano concerto. And in a failed bid to join the ranks of well-paid movie composers in Hollywood where Stravinsky now lived, the second movement, with its prominent harp part, was originally conceived to accompany a vision of the Virgin Mary in the 1943 film Song of Bernadette. Stravinsky's genius was to add a third movement, related to the first, and so create a cohesive, satisfying and brilliant whole despite the disparate origins of its first two parts. He completed the Symphony in 1945 and, despite a deeply felt sense of exile, loss and nostalgia, it's perhaps some of the most American-sounding of Stravinsky's music, capped by a resplendent final chord, straight out of Hollywood.