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Igor Stravinsky: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, on the 17th of June 1882, into a family that would shape his destiny through both love and fear. His father, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater, while his mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya, was an amateur singer and pianist from a family of landowners. The family name, originally Soulima-Stravinsky, derived from the Strava river in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but the Soulima prefix was dropped after the partitions of Poland. Stravinsky lived in a cramped apartment along the Kryukov Canal in central Saint Petersburg, where he spent his first 27 years with three siblings: Roman and Yury, who irritated him immensely, and Gury, his close younger brother with whom he found the love and understanding denied by their parents. He was educated by a governess until age 11, then attended the Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium, a school he recalled hating because he had few friends. Despite his musical passion, his parents saw no talent in him due to his lack of technical skills, and he frequently improvised instead of practicing assigned pieces. His excellent sight-reading skill prompted him to read vocal scores from his father's vast personal library, and by age 14, he had mastered the solo part of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1. At 15, he transcribed a string quartet by Alexander Glazunov for solo piano, demonstrating an early mastery that belied his parents' doubts.
The Law Student Who Became a Composer
Despite his musical passion, Stravinsky's parents expected him to study law at the University of Saint Petersburg, and he enrolled there in 1901. He was a bad student, attending few optional lectures, but in exchange for agreeing to attend law school, his parents allowed him lessons in harmony and counterpoint. During summer vacation of 1902, he traveled with Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, a son of leading Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to Heidelberg, Germany, bringing a portfolio of pieces to demonstrate to Rimsky-Korsakov. While Rimsky-Korsakov was not stunned, he was impressed enough to insist that Stravinsky continue lessons but advised against him entering the Saint Petersburg Conservatory due to its rigorous environment. Importantly, Rimsky-Korsakov agreed personally to advise Stravinsky on his compositions. After Fyodor died in 1902, Stravinsky became more independent and increasingly involved in Rimsky-Korsakov's circle of artists. His first major task from Rimsky-Korsakov was the four-movement Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor in the style of Glazunov and Tchaikovsky. Soon after finishing the sonata, Stravinsky began his large-scale Symphony in E-flat, the first draft of which he finished in 1905. That year, the dedicatee of the Piano Sonata, Nikolay Richter, performed it at a recital hosted by the Rimsky-Korsakovs, marking the first public premiere of a Stravinsky piece. After the events of Bloody Sunday in January 1905 caused the university to close, Stravinsky was not able to take his final exams, resulting in his graduation with a half-diploma. As he began spending more time in Rimsky-Korsakov's circle of artists, Stravinsky became increasingly cramped in the stylistically conservative atmosphere, but he remained loyal to Rimsky-Korsakov, believing that compliance with the latter was necessary to succeed in the Russian music world.
Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia, on the 17th of June 1882. He lived in a cramped apartment along the Kryukov Canal in central Saint Petersburg for his first 27 years.
Who were Igor Stravinsky's parents and what were their professions?
Igor Stravinsky's father was Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater, and his mother was Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya, an amateur singer and pianist from a family of landowners.
When did Igor Stravinsky marry Yekaterina Nosenko and where did the ceremony take place?
Igor Stravinsky married Yekaterina Nosenko on the 24th of January 1906 at the Church of the Annunciation five miles north of Saint Petersburg. The ceremony was held because marriage between first cousins was banned, and the only guests present were Rimsky-Korsakov's sons.
When did Igor Stravinsky die and where was he buried?
Igor Stravinsky died on the 6th of April 1971 at the age of 88 in a new apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York. He was buried on the cemetery island of San Michele in Venice, several meters from Diaghilev's tomb.
When did Igor Stravinsky become a naturalized American citizen?
Igor Stravinsky received American citizenship in 1945 after moving to the United States and residing with Edward W. Forbes at Harvard University. He subsequently signed a contract with British publishing house Boosey & Hawkes to publish all his future works.
When did Igor Stravinsky make his final public conducting appearance?
Igor Stravinsky made his final public conducting appearance on the 17th of May 1967 at Massey Hall in Toronto. He led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his Pulcinella Suite.
In August 1905, Stravinsky announced his engagement to Yekaterina Nosenko, his first cousin, whom he had met in 1890 during a family trip. He later recalled: From our first hour together we both seemed to realize that we would one day marry, or so we told each other later. Perhaps we were always more like brother and sister. I was a deeply lonely child and I wanted a sister of my own. Catherine, who was my first cousin, came into my life as a kind of long-wanted sister... We were from then until her death extremely close, and closer than lovers sometimes are, for mere lovers may be strangers though they live and love together all their lives... Catherine was my dearest friend and playmate ... until we grew into our marriage. The two had grown close during family trips, encouraging each other's interest in painting and drawing, swimming together often, going on wild raspberry picks, helping build a tennis court, playing piano duet music, and later organizing group readings with their other cousins of books and political tracts from Fyodor's personal library. In July 1901, Stravinsky expressed infatuation with Lyudmila Kuxina, Yekaterina's best friend, but after the self-described summer romance had ended, the relationship between Stravinsky and Yekaterina began developing into a furtive romance. Between their intermittent family visits, Yekaterina studied painting at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. The couple married on the 24th of January 1906 at the Church of the Annunciation five miles north of Saint Petersburg because marriage between first cousins was banned, they procured a priest who did not ask their identities, and the only guests present were Rimsky-Korsakov's sons. The couple soon had two children: a son named Théodore, born in 1907, and a daughter named Ludmila, born the following year. After finishing the many revisions of the Symphony in E-flat in 1907, Stravinsky wrote Faun and Shepherdess, a setting of three Pushkin poems for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov organized the first public premiere of Stravinsky's work with the Imperial Court Orchestra in April 1907, programming the Symphony in E-flat and Faun and Shepherdess. Rimsky-Korsakov's death in June 1908 caused Stravinsky deep mourning, and Stravinsky later recalled that Funeral Song, which he composed in memory of Rimsky-Korsakov, was the best of my works before The Firebird.
The Riot That Changed Music
In 1909, Sergei Diaghilev, an impresario who had founded the Russian art magazine Mir iskusstva in 1898, turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities. In 1907, Diaghilev presented a five-concert series of Russian music at the Paris Opera, and the following year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of Boris Godunov. Diaghilev attended the February 1909 premiere of two new Stravinsky works: Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice, both lively orchestral movements featuring bright orchestration and unique harmonic techniques. The vivid color and tone of Stravinsky's works intrigued Diaghilev, and the latter subsequently commissioned the former to orchestrate music by Chopin for parts of the ballet. This ballet was presented by Diaghilev's ballet company, the Ballets Russes, in April 1909, and while the company scored successes with Parisian audiences, Stravinsky was working on Act I of his first opera The Nightingale. As the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something that had recently become popular with French and other Western audiences. Diaghilev asked multiple composers to write the ballet's score, including Lyadov and Nikolai Tcherepnin, but after none committed to the project, Diaghilev turned to Stravinsky, who gladly accepted the task. During the ballet's production, Stravinsky became close with Diaghilev's artistic circle, who were impressed by his enthusiasm to learn more about non-musical art forms. The Firebird premiered in Paris on the 25th of June 1910 to widespread critical acclaim, making Stravinsky an overnight sensation. Many critics praised his alignment with Russian nationalist music. Stravinsky later recollected that after the premiere and subsequent performances, he met many figures in the Paris art scene; Debussy was brought on stage after the premiere and invited Stravinsky to dinner, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two. The Stravinsky family moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, for the birth of their third child, a son named Soulima, and it was there that Stravinsky began work on a piece for piano and orchestra depicting the tale of a puppet coming to life. After hearing the early drafts, Diaghilev convinced Stravinsky to turn it into a ballet for the 1911 season. The resulting work, Petrushka, premiered in Paris on the 13th of June 1911 to equal acclaim as The Firebird, and Stravinsky became established as one of the most advanced young theater composers of his time. While composing The Firebird, Stravinsky conceived an idea for a work about what he called a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. He immediately shared the idea with Nicholas Roerich, a friend and painter of pagan subjects. When Stravinsky told him about the idea, Diaghilev excitedly agreed to commission the work. After the premiere of Petrushka, Stravinsky settled at his family's residence in Ustilug, then part of Vladimir-Volynsky Uyezd in Volhynia Governorate and now part of Volodymyr Raion in the Volyn Oblast of Ukraine, and fleshed out the details of the ballet with Roerich, later finishing the work in Clarens, Switzerland. The result was The Rite of Spring, which depicted pagan rituals in Slavonic tribes and used many avant-garde techniques, including uneven rhythms and meters, superimposed harmonies, atonality, and extensive instrumentation. With radical choreography by the young Vaslav Nijinsky, the ballet's experimental nature caused a near-riot at its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on the 29th of May 1913.
The Exile Who Became American
Soon after The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky was admitted to a hospital for typhoid fever and stayed in recovery for five weeks; numerous colleagues visited him, including Debussy, Manuel de Falla, Maurice Ravel, and Florent Schmitt. Upon returning to his family in Ustilug, Stravinsky continued work on his opera The Nightingale, with an official commission from the Moscow Free Theatre. In early 1914, Yekaterina contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium in Leysin, Switzerland, where the couple's fourth child, a daughter named Maria Milena, was born. There, Stravinsky finished The Nightingale, but after the Moscow Free Theatre closed before the premiere, Diaghilev agreed to stage the opera. The May 1914 premiere was moderately successful; critics' high expectations after the tumultuous Rite of Spring were not met, though fellow composers were impressed by the music's emotion and free treatment of counterpoint and themes. In early July 1914, while his family resided in Switzerland near Yekaterina, Stravinsky traveled to Russia to retrieve texts for his next work, a ballet-cantata depicting Russian wedding traditions titled The Wedding. Soon after he returned, World War I began, and the Stravinskys lived in Switzerland until 1920, initially residing in Clarens and later Morges. During the first months of the war, Stravinsky intensely researched Russian folk poetry and prepared librettos for numerous works to be composed in the coming years, including Renard, The Soldier's Tale, and other song cycles. Stravinsky met numerous Swiss-French artists during his time in Morges, including writer Charles F. Ramuz, with whom he collaborated on the small-scale theater work The Soldier's Tale. The eleven-musician and two-dancer show was designed for easy travel, but after a premiere run funded by Werner Reinhart, all other performances were canceled due to the Spanish flu epidemic. Stravinsky's income from performance royalties was suddenly cut off when his Germany-based publisher suspended operations due to the war. To keep his family afloat, Stravinsky sold numerous manuscripts and accepted commissions from wealthy impresarios; one such commission included Renard, a theater work completed in 1916 upon a request from Princesse Edmond de Polignac. Additionally, Stravinsky made a new concert suite from The Firebird and sold it to a London publisher in an attempt to regain copyright control over the ballet. Diaghilev continued to organize Ballets Russes shows across Europe, including two charity concerts for the Red Cross, where Stravinsky made his conducting debut with The Firebird. When the Ballets Russes traveled to Rome in April 1917, Stravinsky met Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and the two adventured around Italy; a painting they saw in Naples inspired the ballet Pulcinella, which premiered in Paris in May 1920 with designs by Picasso. After the war ended, Stravinsky decided that his residence in Switzerland was too far from Europe's musical activity, and briefly moved his family to Carantec, France. In September 1920, they moved to the home of French fashion designer Coco Chanel, an associate of Diaghilev's; there, Stravinsky composed the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, his early neoclassical work. After his relationship with Chanel developed into an affair, Stravinsky moved his family to the white émigré-hub Biarritz, France, in May 1921, partly due to the presence of his other lover Vera de Bosset. At the time, Vera was married to former Ballet Russes stage designer Serge Sudeikin, though she later divorced him to marry Stravinsky. Though Yekaterina became aware of Stravinsky's infidelity, the couple never divorced, likely due to his refusal to separate. In 1921, Stravinsky signed a contract with the player piano company Pleyel to create piano roll arrangements of his music. He received a studio at their factory on the Rue Rochechouart, where he reorchestrated The Firebird for a small ensemble including player piano. Stravinsky transcribed many of his major works for the mechanical pianos, and the Pleyel premises remained his Paris base until 1933, even after the player piano had been largely supplanted by electrical gramophone recording. Stravinsky signed another contract in 1924, this time with the Aeolian Company in London, producing rolls that included comments about the work by Stravinsky that were engraved into the rolls. He stopped working with player pianos in 1930 when the Aeolian Company's London branch was dissolved. The interest in Pushkin shared by Stravinsky and Diaghilev led to Mavra, a comic opera begun in 1921 that exhibited the former's rejection of Rimsky-Korsakov's style and his turn towards classic Russian operatists like Tchaikovsky, Glinka, and Dargomyzhsky. Yet, after the 1922 premiere, the work's tame nature, compared to the innovative music Stravinsky had come to be known for, disappointed critics. In 1923, Stravinsky finished orchestrating The Rite of Spring, settling on a percussion ensemble including four pianos. The Ballets Russes staged the ballet-cantata that June, and although it initially received moderate reviews, the London production received a flurry of critical attacks, leading English writer H. G. Wells to publish an open letter in support of the work. During this period, Stravinsky expanded his involvement in conducting and piano performance. He conducted the premiere of his Octet in 1923 and served as the soloist for the premiere of his Piano Concerto in 1924. Following its debut, he embarked on a tour, performing the concerto in over 40 concerts. The Stravinsky family moved again in September 1924, this time to Nice, France. Stravinsky's schedule was divided between spending time with his family in Nice, performing in Paris, and touring other locations, often accompanied by Vera. At the time, he was going through a spiritual crisis onset by meeting Father Nicolas, a priest near his new home. Stravinsky had abandoned the Russian Orthodox Church during his teenage years, but after meeting Father Nicolas in 1926 and reconnecting with his faith, he began regularly attending services. From then until moving to the United States, Stravinsky diligently attended church, participated in charity work, and studied religious texts. He later wrote that he was contacted by God at a service at the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua in Italy, leading him to write his first religious composition, the Cantata for a cappella choir. In 1925, Stravinsky asked French writer and artist Jean Cocteau to write the libretto for an operatic setting of Sophocles's tragedy Oedipus Rex in Latin. The May 1927 premiere of Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus rex was staged as a concert performance since there was too little time and money to present it as a full opera, and Stravinsky attributed the work's critical failure to its programming between two glittery ballets. Furthermore, the influence from Russian Orthodox vocal music and 18th-century composers like Handel was not well-received in the press after the May 1927 premiere; neoclassicism was not popular with Parisian critics, and Stravinsky had to publicly assert that his music was not part of the movement. This reception from critics was not improved by Stravinsky's next ballet, Apollo, which depicted the birth and apotheosis of Apollo using an 18th-century musical style. George Balanchine choreographed the premiere, beginning decades of collaborations between him and Stravinsky. Nevertheless, some critics found it a turning point in Stravinsky's neoclassical music, describing it as a pure work that blended neoclassical ideas with modern methods of composition. A new commission for a ballet from Russian-born ballerina Ida Rubinstein in 1928 led Stravinsky again to Tchaikovsky. Basing the music on romantic ballets like Swan Lake and borrowing many themes from Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky wrote The Fairy's Kiss with Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Ice-Maiden as the subject. The November 1928 premiere was not well-received, likely due to the disconnect between each of the ballet's sections and the mediocre choreography, of which Stravinsky disapproved. Diaghilev's fury with Stravinsky for accepting a ballet commission from someone else caused an intense feud between the two, one that lasted until the former's death in August 1929. Most of that year was spent composing a new solo piano work, the Capriccio, and touring across Europe to conduct and perform piano; the Capriccio's success after the December 1929 premiere caused a flurry of performance requests from many orchestras. A commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930 for a symphonic work led Stravinsky back to Latin texts, this time from the book of Psalms. Between touring concerts, he composed the choral Symphony of Psalms, a deeply religious work that premiered in December of that year. While touring in Germany, Stravinsky visited his publisher's home and met Polish-American violinist Samuel Dushkin, who convinced him to compose the Violin Concerto with the latter's help on the solo part. Impressed by Dushkin's virtuosic ability and understanding of music, Stravinsky wrote more music for violin and piano, and rearranged some of his earlier music to be performed alongside the Concerto while on tour until 1933. That year, Stravinsky received another ballet commission from Rubenstein for a setting of a poem by French writer André Gide. The resulting melodrama Perséphone only received three performances in 1934 due to its lukewarm reception, and Stravinsky's disdain towards the work was evident in his later suggestion that the libretto be rewritten. In June of that year, Stravinsky became a naturalized French citizen, protecting all his future works under copyright in France and the United States. The Stravinsky family subsequently moved to an apartment on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, where he began writing a two-volume autobiography with the help of Walter Nouvel, published in 1935 and 1936 as Chronicle of My Life. After the short run of Perséphone, Stravinsky embarked on a successful three-month tour of the United States with Dushkin; he visited South America for the first time the following year. Soulima was an excellent pianist, having performed the Capriccio in concert with Stravinsky conducting. Continuing a line of solo piano works, Stravinsky composed the Concerto for Two Pianos to be performed by them both, and they toured the work through 1936. Around this time came three American-commissioned works: the ballet Apollo for Balanchine, the Brandenburg Concerto-like work Dumbarton Oaks, and the lamenting Symphony in C for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 50th anniversary. Stravinsky's last years in France from late 1938 to 1939 were marked by the deaths of Ludmila, Yekaterina, and Anna, the former two from tuberculosis. In addition, the increasingly hostile criticism of his music in major publications and failed run for a seat at the Institut de France in Paris further dissociated him from France, and shortly after the beginning of World War II in September 1939, he moved to the United States. Upon arriving in the United States, Stravinsky resided with Edward W. Forbes, the director of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures series at Harvard University. Stravinsky was contracted to deliver six lectures for the series, beginning in October 1939 and ending in April 1940. The lectures, written with assistance from Pyotr Suvchinsky and Alexis Roland-Manuel, were published in French under the title Poetics of Music in 1941, with an English translation following in 1947. Between lectures, Stravinsky finished the Symphony in C and toured across the country, meeting Vera upon her arrival in New York. Stravinsky and Vera married on the 9th of March 1940 in Bedford, Massachusetts. After the completion of his lecture series, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where they applied for American naturalization. There Stravinsky and his wife became close friends of the violinist and musicologist Sol Babitz, and became the godparents of Babitz's daughter, the writer and artist Eve Babitz. Money became scarce as the war stopped Stravinsky from receiving European royalties, making him take up numerous conducting engagements and compose commercial works for the entertainment industry, including the Ebony Concerto for Paul Whiteman and the ballet The Rake's Progress for a Broadway revue. He allowed The Rite of Spring to be used in Walt Disney's 1940 animated feature Fantasia that featured a rearranged and shortened version of the piece by Leopold Stokowski. Some discarded film music made it into larger works, as with the war-inspired Symphony in Three Movements, the middle movement of which used music from an unused score for The Song of Bernadette (1943). The poor English of Stravinsky and Vera led to the formation of a predominantly European social circle and home life: the estate staff consisted of mostly Russians, and frequent guests included musicians Joseph Szigeti, Arthur Rubinstein, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. However, Stravinsky eventually joined popular Hollywood circles, attending parties with celebrities, and becoming closely acquainted with European authors Aldous Huxley, W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and Dylan Thomas. In 1945, Stravinsky received American citizenship and subsequently signed a contract with British publishing house Boosey & Hawkes, who agreed to publish all his future works. Additionally, he revised many of his older works and had Boosey & Hawkes publish the new editions to re-copyright his older works. Around the 1948 premiere of another Balanchine collaboration, the ballet Orpheus, Stravinsky met young conductor Robert Craft in New York; Craft had asked Stravinsky to explain the revision of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments for an upcoming concert. The two quickly became friends, and Stravinsky invited Craft to Los Angeles; Craft soon became Stravinsky's assistant, collaborator, and amanuensis until the latter's death.
The Serialist Who Hated Serialism
As he became more familiar with English, Stravinsky developed the idea to write an English-language opera based on a series of paintings by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth titled The Rake's Progress. Stravinsky joined Auden to write the libretto in November 1947; American writer Chester Kallman was later brought in to assist Auden. Stravinsky finished the opera of the same name in 1951, and despite its widespread performances and success, he was dismayed to find that his newer music did not captivate young composers. Craft had introduced Stravinsky to the serial music of the Second Viennese School shortly after The Rake's Progress premiered, while the latter began studying and listening to the music of Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg. During the 1950s, Stravinsky continued touring extensively across the world, occasionally returning to Los Angeles to compose. In 1953, he agreed to compose a new opera with a libretto by Dylan Thomas, but development on the project came to a sudden end following the latter's death in November of that year. Stravinsky completed In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, his first work fully based on the serial twelve-tone technique, the following year. The 1956 cantata Agon premiered at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice, inspiring The Rake's Progress to commission the musical setting Agon in 1957. With the Balanchine ballet Agon, Stravinsky fused neoclassical themes with the twelve-tone technique, and Agon showed his full shift towards use of tone rows. In 1959, Craft interviewed Stravinsky for an article titled Answers to 35 Questions, in which the latter sought to correct myths surrounding him and discuss his relationships with other artists. The article was later expanded into a book, and over the next four years, three more interview-style books were published. Continued international tours brought Stravinsky to Washington, D.C., in January 1962, and he attended a dinner at the White House with then-President John F. Kennedy in honor of the former's 80th birthday. Although it was largely an anti-Soviet political stunt, Stravinsky remembered the event fondly, composing the Elegy for J.F.K. after Kennedy's assassination a year later. In September 1962, Stravinsky returned to Russia for the first time since 1914, accepting an invitation from the Union of Soviet Composers to conduct six performances in Moscow and Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). After the success of The Firebird and The Rite of Spring in the 1910s, his music was respected and frequently performed in the Soviet Union, influencing young Soviet composers at the time like Shostakovich. However, after Stalin began consolidating power in the early 1930s, Stravinsky's music nearly vanished and was formally banned in 1948. A new interest in Stravinsky works was born during the Khrushchev Thaw, partly due to his three-week visit in 1962, during which he met with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and several leading Soviet composers, including Shostakovich and Khachaturian. After eight months of almost continual traveling, Stravinsky returned to Los Angeles in December 1962. Stravinsky revisited biblical themes for many of his later works, notably in the 1961 chamber cantata A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, the 1962 musical television production The Flood, the 1963 Hebrew cantata Abraham and Isaac, and the 1966 Requiem Canticles, the last of which was his final major composition. Between tours, he worked relentlessly to devise new tone rows, even working on toilet paper from airplane lavatories. The intense touring schedule began taking a toll on Stravinsky; January 1967 marked his last recording session, and his final concert came the following May. An obviously very frail Stravinsky made his final public conducting appearance on the 17th of May 1967 at Massey Hall in Toronto when he led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his Pulcinella Suite. After spending the autumn of 1967 in the hospital due to bleeding stomach ulcers and thrombosis, Stravinsky returned to domestic touring in 1968 (only appearing as an audience member) but stopped composing due to his gradual decline in physical health. In his final years, Stravinsky moved to New York with Vera and Craft to be closer to medical care, and the former's travel was limited to visiting family in Europe. Stravinsky was discharged from Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan after contracting pulmonary edema. He subsequently moved with Vera to a new apartment on Fifth Avenue, where he died on the 6th of April 1971 at the age of 88. A funeral service was held three days later at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue. After a service at Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice with a performance of the Requiem Canticles conducted by Craft, Stravinsky was buried on the cemetery island of San Michele, several meters from Diaghilev's tomb.