Questions about Igor Stravinsky
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What caused the near-riot at the premiere of The Rite of Spring?
The avant-garde nature of The Rite of Spring, including its uneven rhythms, superimposed harmonies, atonality, and extensive instrumentation, combined with radical choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, provoked a near-riot at its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on the 29th of May 1913. Musicologist Donald Jay Grout described the work as having the effect of an explosion that scattered the elements of musical language so completely they could never again be put together as before.
How did Igor Stravinsky meet his mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov?
Stravinsky befriended Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer's son, while studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg. During the summer of 1902, Stravinsky traveled with Vladimir to Heidelberg, where the elder Rimsky-Korsakov was staying, and brought a portfolio of compositions. Impressed enough to take Stravinsky on personally, Rimsky-Korsakov agreed to advise him directly rather than recommend the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
What are the three compositional periods of Igor Stravinsky?
Stravinsky's career is divided into a Russian period from 1913 to 1920, a neoclassical period from 1920 to 1951, and a serial period from 1954 to 1968. During the Russian period he drew heavily on folk poetry and folklore; during the neoclassical period he revived classical forms and Greek mythological themes; during the serial period he adopted the twelve-tone technique developed by Arnold Schoenberg, adapting it by freely repeating notes and reordering cells within the tone row.
What was Igor Stravinsky's final major composition?
Stravinsky's final major work was the Requiem Canticles, composed in 1966. The work uses a complex four-part array of tone rows. It was performed at Stravinsky's own funeral following his death on the 6th of April 1971, and Robert Craft conducted it at the service held at Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice before Stravinsky was buried on the island of San Michele.
Why was Stravinsky's music banned in the Soviet Union?
After Stalin began consolidating power in the early 1930s, Stravinsky's music was performed less and less in the Soviet Union, and was formally banned in 1948. A new interest developed during the Khrushchev Thaw. In September 1962, Stravinsky returned to Russia for the first time since 1914, conducting six performances in Moscow and Leningrad and meeting with Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Shostakovich, and Khachaturian.
How did Igor Stravinsky adapt the twelve-tone technique in his serial period?
Unlike Schoenberg's strict system, which disallowed repeating any tone in a row until the entire row was complete, Stravinsky repeated notes freely and even separated rows into cells that he reordered. His first work fully based on the technique was In Memoriam Dylan Thomas in 1954. The Requiem Canticles of 1966 made use of a complex four-part array of tone rows, showing how far he had developed the approach on his own terms.