Stravinsky, Igor << struh VIHN skee, EE gawr >> (1882-1971), was a Russian-born composer. Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg are generally considered the two most influential composers of the 1900’s.
Early works.
Stravinsky first gained world fame for three major ballets—The Firebird (1910), Petrouchka (1911, revised 1947), and The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) (1913). All were produced in Paris in collaboration with the famous Russian ballet manager Sergei Diaghilev and remain Stravinsky’s best-known works. The Rite of Spring, with its huge orchestration, savage rhythms, and innovative harmonies, caused a riot at its first performance. All three ballets were based on Russian folklore, as were Stravinsky’s ballet Les Noces (The Wedding, 1923) and his stage work L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale, 1918).
Loading the player...The Rite of Spring
Neoclassical works.
From 1919 through 1951, Stravinsky wrote in a neoclassical style, using scales, chords, and tone color in a generally clear and traditional way. During this period, Stravinsky modeled his works on music from the past. His ballet Pulcinella (1920) is based on themes by the Italian baroque composer Giovanni Pergolesi. The Rake’s Progress (1951), Stravinsky’s only full-length opera, is stylistically similar to the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Loading the player...The Firebird
Stravinsky’s other major neoclassical works include the Octet for winds (1923, revised 1952), Symphony in C (1940), and Symphony in Three Movements (1946). Symphony of Psalms (1930, revised 1948) is a choral work whose orchestration excludes clarinets, violins, and violas while including two pianos. Here, as in most of his later choral works, Stravinsky used Latin texts.
The 12-tone works.
Though long opposed to Schoenberg’s 12-tone system, Stravinsky eventually came to adopt it in his own way (see Music (Tone)). From 1952 to 1954, Stravinsky used rows of fewer than 12 notes in his compositions. This use is consistent throughout In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), for tenor and instruments. The abstract ballet Agon (1957) has a 12-tone row in some movements but not in others. The same is true of the choral composition Canticum Sacrum (1956). The choral work Threni (1958) marks Stravinsky’s first consistent use of a single 12-tone row in an extended composition.
Stravinsky’s last major works, from Movements for piano and orchestra (1960) through Requiem Canticles (1966), display a use of 12-tone technique that was increasingly unconventional and personal. In these works, Stravinsky composed as if the orchestra were a collection of chamber ensembles.
Life.
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882, near St. Petersburg. He began piano lessons at the age of 9 and studied composition and orchestration with Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov from 1903 to 1908. Stravinsky left Russia in 1914, settling first in Switzerland, and then in France in 1920 and in the United States in 1939. Stravinsky became a French citizen in 1934 and a U.S. citizen in 1945. He died on April 6, 1971.
