Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, on the 17th of June 1882. His father worked as a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg while his mother sang and played piano at home. The family lived near the theater, allowing young Igor to attend rehearsals five or six days a week by age sixteen. He mastered Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 by age fourteen and transcribed Glazunov's string quartet for solo piano at fifteen.
Despite this musical talent, his parents insisted he study law at the University of Saint Petersburg starting in 1901. He attended few optional lectures but used his time to take private lessons in harmony and counterpoint. A summer trip to Heidelberg with Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov led to a meeting with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov himself. The elder composer agreed to advise Stravinsky personally, though he advised against entering the conservatory due to its rigorous environment.
After his father died in 1902, Stravinsky became more independent within Rimsky-Korsakov's circle. He wrote his first major task, a four-movement Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, which premiered publicly in 1905. Later that year, he finished the Symphony in E-flat, marking his first public premiere of a large-scale work. By 1907, he had written Faun and Shepherdess, setting three Pushkin poems for mezzo-soprano and orchestra.
Sergei Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to write The Firebird after other composers declined the project. The ballet premiered in Paris on the 25th of June 1910, creating an overnight sensation for the young Russian composer. Critics praised his alignment with Russian nationalist music, and Debussy invited him to dinner following the performance, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two.
Diaghilev then asked Stravinsky to turn a piano-and-orchestra piece into a full ballet titled Petrushka. It premiered in Paris on the 13th of June 1911, establishing Stravinsky as one of the most advanced theater composers of his time. The work contained one of the first prominent uses of bitonality through the recurring "Petrushka chord".
The third commission became The Rite of Spring, depicting pagan rituals where a young girl dances herself to death. The premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on the 29th of May 1913, caused a near-riot due to its avant-garde nature. The score used uneven rhythms, odd meters, superimposed harmonies, and extensive instrumentation that changed how composers understood rhythmic structure forever.
Stravinsky moved his family to Lausanne, Switzerland, for the birth of their third child Soulima before settling in France. In September 1920, they moved to Carantec, then later to Biarritz, partly due to an affair with Vera de Bosset who eventually divorced her husband to marry Stravinsky. He signed a contract with Pleyel player piano company in 1921, receiving a studio on Rue Rochechouart where he reorchestrated many works.
His neoclassical period began with Pulcinella, commissioned by Diaghilev in 1919 but premiered in Paris in May 1920 with designs by Pablo Picasso. The ballet imposed harmonic and rhythmic systems from late-Baroque era composers like Pergolesi onto new choreography. This marked the start of his turn toward eighteenth-century music while maintaining modernist elements.
In 1927, he composed Oedipus rex, an opera-oratorio set to Latin text based on Sophocles's tragedy. The premiere was staged as a concert performance due to lack of time and money. Critics initially failed to receive its blend of Russian Orthodox vocal music and eighteenth-century styles well, forcing Stravinsky to publicly assert that his music was not part of any movement.
He received American citizenship in 1945 and signed a contract with Boosey & Hawkes to publish all future works. Around the 1948 premiere of Orpheus, he met young conductor Robert Craft who became his assistant until Stravinsky's death. Craft introduced him to serial music from the Second Viennese School while Stravinsky studied Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg.
In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954) became his first work fully based on the twelve-tone technique following the poet's death in November 1953. The 1956 cantata Threni premiered at Venice's International Festival of Contemporary Music, inspiring further commissions that utilized tone rows.
Stravinsky's career divides into three main periods: Russian period from 1913 to 1920, neoclassical period from 1920 to 1951, and serial period from 1954 to 1968. His early ballets used large orchestration to feature many different timbres, surprising musicians due to the orchestra's great force at certain moments. The Firebird employed what Stravinsky called "leit-harmony" to juxtapose protagonist and antagonist characters.
The Rite of Spring pushed polytonality to its logical conclusion with complex meters combining conflicting time signatures and odd accents. Musicologist Donald Jay Grout described it as having the effect of an explosion scattering musical language elements so they could never again be put together as before. This work remains one of the most famous and influential compositions of the twentieth century.
His neoclassical period ended in 1951 with The Rake's Progress, which Taruskin described as the hub and essence of neo-classicism. The opera contains numerous references to Greek mythology and other operas like Mozart's Don Giovanni while embodying the distinctive structure of a fairy tale.
Stravinsky married his first cousin Yekaterina Nosenko on the 24th of January 1906, after procuring a priest who did not ask their identities since marriage between first cousins was banned. They had four children: Théodore born in 1907, Ludmila born in 1908, Soulima born in Switzerland, and Maria Milena born in Leysin during her mother's tuberculosis treatment. The couple remained married
despite Stravinsky's infidelity with Vera de Bosset.
He formed strong relationships with artists like Picasso whom he met in 1917. They exchanged small-scale works including a portrait by Picasso and a sketch of clarinet music by Stravinsky. Later collaborations included working with W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman on The Rake's Progress libretto and writing an opera with Dylan Thomas that stopped due to the poet's death in November 1953.
His final years saw him move to New York with Vera and Robert Craft to be closer to medical care. He died on the 6th of April 1971, at age eighty-eight from pulmonary edema after being discharged from Lenox Hill Hospital.
Time magazine listed Stravinsky as one of the hundred most influential people of the century in 1998. American composer Philip Glass wrote that Stravinsky conducted with energy and vividness conveying every musical intention while his evolution never stopped. No composer who lived during his time or is alive today was not touched and sometimes transformed by his work.
Stravinsky received five
Grammy Awards and eleven nominations for his recordings, with three albums inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. He was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. His rhythmic innovations in The Rite of Spring brought rhythm to the forefront of modern music rather than tonality, setting a new standard that future composers like Varèse and Ligeti were inspired to innovate upon.
His influence extended to Aaron Copland, Pierre Boulez, Béla Bartók, and many others including Elliott Carter and Harrison Birtwistle. Even his less popular works influenced avant-garde masters like Messiaen, Tippett, Andriessen, and Xenakis through their disconnected forms. Stravinsky's importance in modernist music became evident after his death when many other styles quickly fell out of fashion.
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Common questions
When and where was Igor Stravinsky born?
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, on the 17th of June 1882. His father worked as a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg while his mother sang and played piano at home.
What major ballets did Igor Stravinsky compose for Sergei Diaghilev?
Sergei Diaghilev commissioned The Firebird which premiered in Paris on the 25th of June 1910, followed by Petrushka which premiered in Paris on the 13th of June 1911. The third commission became The Rite of Spring that caused a near-riot upon its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on the 29th of May 1913.
How many Grammy Awards did Igor Stravinsky receive during his lifetime or posthumously?
Stravinsky received five Grammy Awards and eleven nominations for his recordings with three albums inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. He was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.
When did Igor Stravinsky die and what was the cause of death?
Igor Stravinsky died on the 6th of April 1971 at age eighty-eight from pulmonary edema after being discharged from Lenox Hill Hospital. His final years saw him move to New York with Vera and Robert Craft to be closer to medical care.
What are the three main periods of Igor Stravinsky's musical career?
Stravinsky's career divides into three main periods: Russian period from 1913 to 1920, neoclassical period from 1920 to 1951, and serial period from 1954 to 1968. The neoclassical period ended in 1951 with The Rake's Progress which Taruskin described as the hub and essence of neo-classicism.