Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 (Old Style June 5), and died on April 6, 1971. He was a Russian composer and conductor who later became a French citizen in 1934 and an American citizen in 1945. He is widely seen as one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a very important figure in modernist music.

Stravinsky was born into a musical family in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He studied piano and music theory as a child. While studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a famous composer, and studied music with him until Rimsky-Korsakov's death in 1908. Soon after, Stravinsky met Sergei Diaghilev, a music producer, who asked him to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes in Paris: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). The last ballet caused a near-riot at its first performance because of its new and different style, and it changed how composers understood rhythm.

Stravinsky's career is often divided into three main periods: his Russian period (1913–1920), his neoclassical period (1920–1951), and his serial period (1954–1968). During his Russian period, he used Russian musical styles and folklore in his work. Pieces like Renard (1916) and Les noces (1923) used Russian folk poetry, while L'Histoire du soldat (1918) combined folk elements with musical forms such as the tango, waltz, ragtime, and chorale. During his neoclassical period, he used themes and techniques from the classical music era, such as the sonata form in Octet (1923) and Greek mythology in works like Apollon musagète (1927), Oedipus rex (1927), and Persephone (1935). In his serial period, he used techniques from the Second Viennese School, such as Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone method. In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954) was his first work fully based on this method, and Canticum Sacrum (1956) was his first piece using a tone row. His last major work was Requiem Canticles (1966), which was performed at his funeral.

Although some people found Stravinsky's changing styles confusing, later writers saw his ability to use many different musical languages as important for the development of modernist music. His ideas influenced many composers, including Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Béla Bartók, and Pierre Boulez, who were inspired to create music that went beyond traditional tonality, especially in rhythm and musical structure. In 1998, Time magazine listed Stravinsky as one of the 100 most influential people of the century. He died of pulmonary edema on April 6, 1971, in New York City. He left behind six memoirs written with his friend and assistant, Robert Craft, as well as an earlier autobiography and a series of lectures.

Life

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, Russia. This town was later renamed Lomonosov in 1948 and is located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Saint Petersburg. At the time of his birth, Oranienbaum was part of the Saint Petersburg Governorate in the Russian Empire and is now part of the Petrodvortsovy District in Saint Petersburg. Stravinsky’s mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya (born Kholodovskaya), was an amateur singer and pianist from a family of landowners. His father, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg and came from a family of Polish landowners. The name "Stravinsky" has Polish origins, linked to the Strava River in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The family was originally called "Soulima-Stravinsky" and used the Soulima family crest, but they stopped using "Soulima" after the partitions of Poland.

The Stravinsky family spent summers in Oranienbaum, and their main home was an apartment near the Kryukov Canal in Saint Petersburg, close to the Mariinsky Theater. Stravinsky was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church at St. Nicholas Cathedral shortly after birth. He lived with his parents and three siblings for the first 27 years of his life. His older brothers, Roman and Yury, often annoyed him, while his younger brother, Gury, was a close friend who provided the love and understanding Stravinsky felt his parents lacked. A governess from the family taught Stravinsky until he was 11, after which he attended the Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium in the Admiralteysky District. He later said he disliked the school because he had few friends.

From age nine, Stravinsky studied piano privately. His parents believed he lacked musical talent because he did not practice assigned pieces and instead improvised. However, his ability to read music quickly allowed him to study vocal scores from his father’s large collection. By age 10, he regularly attended performances at the Mariinsky Theater, where he was introduced to Russian, Italian, and French opera. By 16, he attended rehearsals there five or six days a week. At 14, he mastered the solo part of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and at 15, he transcribed a string quartet by Alexander Glazunov for solo piano.

Despite his musical interests, Stravinsky’s parents expected him to study law at the University of Saint Petersburg. He enrolled in 1901 but was not a good student and attended few lectures. In exchange for attending law school, his parents allowed him to take lessons in harmony and counterpoint. At university, he befriended Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, the son of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1902, Stravinsky traveled to Heidelberg, Germany, with Vladimir to show Rimsky-Korsakov a portfolio of his music. Rimsky-Korsakov was not deeply impressed but encouraged Stravinsky to continue lessons and advised against attending the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He agreed to personally advise Stravinsky on his compositions.

After his father died in 1902, Stravinsky became more independent and spent more time with Rimsky-Korsakov’s circle of artists. His first major task from Rimsky-Korsakov was to compose a four-movement Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, inspired by Glazunov and Tchaikovsky. He also wrote a cantata for Rimsky-Korsakov’s 60th birthday celebration, which the composer called "not bad." After completing the sonata, Stravinsky began working on his large-scale Symphony in E-flat, finishing the first draft in 1905. The dedicatee of the Piano Sonata, Nikolay Richter, performed it at a recital hosted by Rimsky-Korsakov, marking the first public performance of Stravinsky’s work.

In 1905, after the events of Bloody Sunday caused the university to close, Stravinsky could not take his final exams and graduated with a half-diploma. As he spent more time with Rimsky-Korsakov’s group, he felt limited by the conservative musical style of the time. Modern music was often criticized, and concerts of contemporary works were looked down upon. However, Stravinsky attended some chamber concerts focused on modern music, which he found intellectually stimulating. These concerts introduced him to French composers like Franck, Dukas, Fauré, and Debussy. Despite this, Stravinsky remained loyal to Rimsky-Korsakov, believing that following his guidance was necessary for success in the Russian music world. He later said that Rimsky-Korsakov’s musical conservatism helped him build the foundation for his own style.

In August 1905, Stravinsky announced his engagement to Yekaterina Nosenko, his first cousin, whom he had met in 1890 during a family trip. They had grown close during family visits, sharing interests in painting, swimming, and reading. Yekaterina studied painting in Paris at the Académie Colarossi. The couple married in January 1906 at the Church of the Annunciation, five miles (eight kilometers) north of Saint Petersburg, because marriage between first cousins was illegal. They arranged for a priest who did not ask their identities, and only Rimsky-Korsakov’s sons attended the ceremony. They had two children: a son named Théodore, born in 1907, and a daughter named Ludmila, born the following year.

After completing revisions to the Symphony in E-flat in 1907, Stravinsky wrote Faun and Shepherdess, a musical setting of three poems by Pushkin for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov organized the first public performance of Stravinsky’s work with the Imperial Court Orchestra in April 1907, including the Symphony in E-flat and Faun and Shepherdess. Rimsky-Korsakov’s death in June 1908 deeply affected Stravinsky, and he later said that the Funeral Song he composed in his memory was "the best of my works before The Firebird."

In 1898, Sergei Diaghilev, an impresario, founded the Russian art magazine Mir iskusstva. After it stopped publishing in 1904, he moved to Paris for artistic opportunities. In 1907, Diaghilev presented a series of Russian music concerts at the Paris Opera, and in 1908, he staged the Paris premiere

Music

Stravinsky's music is known for short, clear notes with little use of rubato or vibrato. His early works were mostly assignments from Rimsky-Korsakov and were influenced by Russian composers. His first three ballets, The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring, brought him international fame and marked a shift away from 19th-century styles. Stravinsky's music is often divided into three periods: the Russian period (1913–1920), where he was influenced by Russian artists and folklore; the neoclassical period (1920–1951), where he used techniques and themes from the classical era; and the serial period (1954–1968), where he used structured methods from the Second Viennese School.

Before meeting Diaghilev, Stravinsky studied under Rimsky-Korsakov and his collaborators. Only three works survive from before he met Rimsky-Korsakov in 1902: Tarantella (1898), Scherzo in G minor (1902), and The Storm Cloud, the first two for piano and the last for voice and piano. His first assignment from Rimsky-Korsakov was the four-movement Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, which was his first public performance. Rimsky-Korsakov often asked Stravinsky to orchestrate works to help him study their structure. Many early works showed influence from French composers, such as the use of unique tone combinations. Some of Stravinsky's student compositions were performed at Rimsky-Korsakov's home, including a set of bagatelles, a "chanson comique," and a cantata, which used classical techniques later seen in his neoclassical period. Musicologist Stephen Walsh described this time as "aesthetically cramped" due to Rimsky-Korsakov's "cynical conservatism." Rimsky-Korsakov disliked Stravinsky's Symphony in E-flat (1907) for being too similar to Glazunov's style and found Faun and Shepherdess (1907) too modern. Critics, however, said these works did not stand out from Rimsky-Korsakov's own music.

Russian composers often used large orchestras to create varied sounds, and Stravinsky used this idea in his first three ballets, surprising musicians with the orchestra's strong moments. The Firebird used a harmonic structure called "leit-harmony," a term combining "leitmotif" and "harmony" used by Rimsky-Korsakov in The Golden Cockerel. This structure contrasted the Firebird (linked to whole-tone phrases) and Koschei the Deathless (linked to octatonic harmony). Stravinsky later said he composed The Firebird in a "revolt against Rimsky-Korsakov" and used techniques like ponticello, col legno, flautando, glissando, and fluttertongue.

Stravinsky's second ballet, Petrushka, showed his Russian influence through the use of Russian folk tunes, two waltzes by Joseph Lanner, and a French music hall tune. He also used a folk tune from Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden, showing his respect for his teacher. Petrushka also introduced bitonality through the "Petrushka chord."

Stravinsky's third ballet, The Rite of Spring, caused a near-riot at its premiere due to its avant-garde style. He had experimented with polytonality in The Firebird and Petrushka, but in The Rite of Spring, he "pushed [it] to its logical conclusion," as Eric Walter White wrote. The music uses complex meters with conflicting time signatures and odd accents, like the "jagged slashes" in "Sacrificial Dance." The opening chords of "Augurs of Spring" combine an E-flat dominant 7 chord with an F-flat major triad in an uneven rhythm, with shifting accents creating asymmetry. The Rite of Spring is one of the most famous works of the 20th century; musicologist Donald Jay Grout called it "the effect of an explosion that so scattered the elements of musical language that they could never again be put together as before."

Musicologist Jeremy Noble said Stravinsky's research into Russian folk material happened during his time in Switzerland (1914–1920). Béla Bartók believed Stravinsky's Russian period began with The Rite of Spring due to its use of Russian folk songs, themes, and techniques. Duple or triple meters were common in his Russian period music, with time signatures often changing to shift accents.

Although Stravinsky used fewer folk melodies later, he often used folk poetry. The ballet-cantata Les noces was based on Russian folk poetry by Pyotr Kireevsky, and Renard was based on a folktale by Alexander Afanasyev. Many Russian period works included animal themes, likely inspired by nursery rhymes he read with his children. Unique theatrical styles were also used, such as in Les noces, which combined ballet staging with small instrumentation, and Renard, where voices were placed in the orchestra to match stage action. L'Histoire du soldat (1918) mixed Russian folktales with musical styles like the tango, waltz, rag, and chorale. Even as his style evolved, Stravinsky kept a connection to his Russian roots.

The ballet Pulcinella (1919) was commissioned by Diaghilev based on music by 18th-century Italian composers like Pergolesi. By using harmonic and rhythmic systems from the late Baroque era, Stravinsky began turning toward 18th-century music. While Jeremy Noble said his neoclassical period began in 1920 with Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Bartók argued it started with the Octet for Wind Instruments and Concerto for Piano. During this period, Stravinsky used techniques and themes from the classical era.

Greek mythology was a theme in Stravinsky's neoclassical works. His first Greek-themed ballet, Apollon musagète (1927), focused on Apollo, the god of art. Later works included Oedipus rex (1927), Persephone (1935), and Orpheus (1947). Musicologist Richard Taruskin called Oedipus rex "the product of Stravinsky's neo-classical manner at its most extreme," using outdated techniques alongside modern ideas. Stravinsky also modernized older musical structures, such as using sonata form in his Octet (1923) by rearranging themes and tonal relationships.

Artistic influences

Stravinsky worked with many famous artists of his time. He met many of them after achieving international success with The Firebird. Diaghilev was one of Stravinsky's most important artistic influences. Diaghilev introduced Stravinsky to composing for the stage and helped him gain international fame through his first three ballets. Through the Ballets Russes and Diaghilev, Stravinsky worked with artists such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Alexandre Benois, Michel Fokine, and Léon Bakst.

Stravinsky’s interest in art led him to form a close relationship with Picasso, whom he met in 1917. In the years that followed, the two artists exchanged small works of art as a sign of their friendship. This included Picasso’s famous portrait of Stravinsky and a short sketch of clarinet music by Stravinsky. These exchanges helped shape how they worked together on projects like Ragtime and Pulcinella.

Stravinsky had a wide range of interests in literature and always sought new discoveries. His early works were inspired by Russian folklore. After moving to Switzerland in 1914, Stravinsky collected folk stories from many sources. These stories were later used in works such as Les noces, Renard, Pribaoutki, and various songs. Many of Stravinsky’s works, including The Firebird, Renard, and L’Histoire du soldat, were inspired by Afanasyev’s collection Russian Folk Tales. Folk music also influenced Stravinsky’s compositions. Many melodies in The Rite of Spring were found in an anthology of Lithuanian folk songs.

Stravinsky’s interest in the Latin liturgy began after he reconnected with the church in 1926. His first religious work, Pater Noster, was written in Old Church Slavonic in 1926. Later, he used three psalms from the Latin Vulgate in his Symphony of Psalms, which was written for orchestra and mixed choir. Many works from Stravinsky’s neoclassical and serial periods used or were based on religious texts.

Stravinsky collaborated with many writers throughout his career. He first worked with Ramuz, who helped him create the text for L’Histoire du soldat in 1918. In 1933, Russian-born ballerina Ida Rubinstein asked Stravinsky to set music to a poem by French writer André Gide. This became the melodrama Perséphone. The collaboration between Stravinsky and Gide was difficult. Gide was unhappy with how the music did not match the rhythm of his poem and did not attend rehearsals. Stravinsky ignored many of Gide’s suggestions. Gide left the project and did not attend the premiere. The story for The Rake’s Progress was first created by Stravinsky and W. H. Auden, who wrote the libretto with Chester Kallman. Stravinsky also became friends with writers such as T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, and Dylan Thomas. He began working with Thomas on an opera in 1953, but the project ended after Thomas’s death.

Legacy

Igor Stravinsky is widely considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century. In 1998, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the century. Stravinsky was known not only for his music but also for his skills as a pianist and conductor. American composer Philip Glass wrote in Time that Stravinsky conducted with great energy and clarity, allowing audiences to fully understand his musical ideas. He described Stravinsky as a "musical revolutionary" who constantly evolved and influenced many composers throughout his life. French critic Alexis Roland-Manuel noted that Stravinsky and French composer Maurice Ravel were among the few people who understood how to use instruments like the trombone, cello, and tam-tam in an orchestra with great precision.

Stravinsky was famous for his unique use of rhythm, especially in his work The Rite of Spring. The rhythm in this piece did not follow traditional patterns, which helped future composers create more flexible rhythms in their music. However, some people saw his later work, which returned to older musical styles, as a step back from modern ideas. His later use of a system called serialism made some audiences and scholars feel he was not being innovative, as they believed that the death of composer Arnold Schoenberg ended the use of this system. Music historian Stephen Walsh explained that Stravinsky’s changing musical style reflected his life as an exile from Russia, where he adapted to new environments and absorbed the music of others. Music analyst Martha Hyde noted that recent studies view Stravinsky’s return to older styles as a sign of a new musical movement called postmodernism. After his death, Stravinsky’s contributions to modern music became clear. While many modern styles faded over time, his work remained unique and creative, according to Walsh.

Stravinsky inspired many composers and musicians. His rhythmic ideas in The Rite of Spring changed how rhythm was used in modern music, making it more important than traditional harmony. This influenced later composers like Varèse and Ligeti. His rhythmic energy and style also affected Aaron Copland and Pierre Boulez. The mix of traditional folk music with modern ideas in his work influenced Béla Bartók. Even his less well-known pieces, such as Symphonies of Wind Instruments, influenced later composers like Messiaen, Tippett, Andriessen, and Xenakis. Stravinsky also inspired composers such as Elliott Carter, Harrison Birtwistle, and John Tavener. In addition to his collaborator Robert Craft, his students included Earnest Andersson, Armando José Fernandes, Mordecai Seter, Robert Strassburg, and Warren Zevon.

Recordings

During the World Wars, Igor Stravinsky needed money, so he signed many contracts with record companies to conduct his music. Stravinsky first learned about player piano technology when he was young, which made him believe that records were not as good as live performances. However, he saw records as important records of how his music should be played. Because of this, Stravinsky created a large collection of recordings of his own music, but rarely recorded music by other composers. Most of his recordings were made with studio musicians, but he also worked with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the CBC Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Stravinsky won five Grammy Awards and received eleven total nominations for his recordings. Three of his albums were added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. He was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award after he died in 1987.

During his lifetime, Stravinsky appeared in several television programs and documentaries. The first was a 1957 interview called A Conversation with Igor Stravinsky, produced by NBC and Robert Graff. Graff later helped create The Flood. This interview style influenced books that Craft wrote with Stravinsky. In 1965, a documentary titled Stravinsky was made by the National Film Board of Canada. Directed by Roman Kroitor and Wolf Koenig, it showed Stravinsky conducting the CBC Symphony Orchestra while recording the Symphony of Psalms. The film included interviews with him. In 1966, a CBS documentary called Portrait of Stravinsky took Stravinsky to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where The Rite of Spring first performed, and to his old home in Clarens, Switzerland. Other documentaries showed how Stravinsky and Balanchine worked together on their projects.

Writings

Igor Stravinsky wrote several books during his lifetime. In his 1936 autobiography, Chronicle of My Life, which he wrote with the help of Walter Nouvel, he said, "music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all." He also worked with Alexis Roland-Manuel and Pierre Souvtchinsky to write the Harvard University Charles Eliot Norton Lectures from 1939–1940. These lectures were first published in French under the title Poétique musicale in 1942 and later translated into English as Poetics of Music in 1947. In 1959, interviews between Stravinsky and Robert Craft were published as Conversations with Igor Stravinsky. Five more books with similar formats were published in the following years.

Books and articles about Stravinsky are listed in Appendix E of Eric Walter White’s Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, in Alicja Jarzębska’s Stravinsky: His Thoughts and Music, and in Walsh’s profile of Stravinsky on Oxford Music Online.

• Stravinsky, Igor (1936). Chronicle of My Life. London: Gollancz. OCLC 1354065. Originally published in French as Chroniques de ma vie, 2 vols. (Paris: Denoël et Steele, 1935). This version was later translated as Chronicle of My Life. A later edition was published as Igor Stravinsky – An Autobiography, with a preface by Eric Walter White (London: Calder and Boyars, 1975) ISBN 978-0-7145-1063-7. It was also published again as An Autobiography (1903–1934) (London: Boyars, 1990) ISBN 978-0-7145-1063-7. Other editions include Igor Stravinsky – An Autobiography (New York: M. & J. Steuer, 1958) and An Autobiography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962) ISBN 978-0-393-00161-7.
• — (1970) [1947]. Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1939–1940. Translated by George A. Seferis and Arthur Knodel. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-67856-9.
• —; Craft, Robert (1959). Conversations with Igor Stravinsky. Doubleday. OCLC 896750. Reprinted by University of California Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-520-04040-3.
• —; — (1981) [1960]. Memories and Commentaries. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-520-04402-9. Reprinted by University of California Press, 1981.
• —; — (1981) [1962]. Expositions and Developments. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-520-04403-6. Reprinted by University of California Press, 1981.
• —; — (1963). Dialogues and a Diary. Doubleday. OCLC 896750. Reprinted by Faber and Faber, 1986.
• —; — (1966). Themes and Episodes. Alfred A. Knopf. OCLC 611277.
• —; — (1969). Retrospectives and Conclusions. Alfred A. Knopf. OCLC 896809.
• —; — (1972). Themes and Conclusions. Faber and Faber. This is a one-volume edition of Themes and Episodes (1966) and Retrospectives and Conclusions (1969), revised by Igor Stravinsky in 1971. ISBN 978-0-571-08308-4. Reprinted by University of California Press, 1982.

• Stravinsky, Igor (29 May 1913). Canudo, Ricciotto (ed.). "Ce que j'ai voulu exprimer dans Le sacre du printemps" [What I Wanted to Express in The Rite of Spring]. Montjoie! (in French). No. 2. At DICTECO
• — (15 May 1921). "Les Espagnols aux Ballets Russes" [The Spaniards at the Ballets Russes]. Comœdia (in French). At DICTECO
• — (18 October 1921). "The Genius of Tchaikovsky". The Times (Open Letter to Diaghilev). No. 42854. London.
• — (18 May 1922). "Une lettre de Stravinsky sur Tchaikovsky" [A Letter from Stravinsky on Tchaikovsky]. Le Figaro (in French). At DICTECO
• — (January 1924). "Some Ideas about my Octuor". The Arts. Vol. VI, no. 1. Brooklyn. (in White 1979, pp. 575–577)
• — (1924). "O mych ostatnich utworach" [About my last works]. The Muzyka (in Polish). No. 1. pp. 15–17.
• — (1927). "Kilka uwag o tzw. neoklasycyzmie" [A few remarks about so-called neoclassicism]. The Muzyka (in Polish). No. 12. pp. 563–566.
• — (December 1927). "Avertissement… a Warning". The Dominant. London. (in White 1979, p. 577)
• — (29 April 1934). "Igor Strawinsky nous parle de Perséphone" [Igor Stravinsky tells us about Persephone]. Excelsior [fr] (in French). At DICTECO
• — (1934). "Moja spowiedź muzyczna