Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971); RUS/FRA/USA

Stravinsky, Igor (Fyodorovich) (b Oranienbaum, 1882; d NY, 1971). Russ.-born composer, conductor, pianist, and writer (Fr. cit. 1934, Amer. cit. 1945). Son of Fyodor Stravinsky. Went to St Petersburg Univ. 1901 to study law but increasingly spent time in mus. pursuits. Spent much time at Rimsky-Korsakov's house, becoming his pupil in 1903. Began 1st sym., 1905, also pf. sonata. When his short orch. pieces Fireworks and Scherzo fantastique were played in St Petersburg in 1909, they were heard by Diaghilev, who had by then formed the famous Ballets Russes in Paris. He invited Stravinsky to compose a ballet on the legend of The Firebird, Lyadov having failed to meet his deadline, for 1910 season. Its success made Stravinsky world-famous, and was followed by Petrushka (1911) and by The Rite of Spring (1913), the f.p. of the latter causing a riot. By then, Stravinsky was regarded as the leader of the mus. avant-garde. With the Russ. Revolution of 1917, resulting in confiscation of his property, and the financial troubles of the Diaghilev co., Stravinsky thought of forming a small touring th. co. to present inexpensively mounted productions. The result was The Soldier's Tale (L'Histoire du Soldat), for chamber ens.; it also enabled him to combine 2 of his main interests, Russ. folk-rhythms and Amer. jazz. His ballet Pulcinella, composed for Diaghilev in 1919-20, was a ‘re-composition’ of mus. attrib. to Pergolesi and initiated the ‘neo-classical’ phase in Stravinsky's career. His last overtly Russ. works of this period were the ballet Les Noces and the opera Mavra. Settling in Fr., he wrote a series of works in which the spirit of the 18th cent. is invoked but with unmistakably 20th-cent. harmonic and rhythmic flavouring. The pf. conc., in which he played the solo part, the Capriccio for pf. and orch., the vn. conc., the ballet Apollo Musagetes, the Sym. in C major and, most of all the Hogarthian opera The Rake's Progress (1951), are the finest flowers of this facet of Stravinsky's art. On the other hand, the opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex (1926-7), for which Cocteau wrote the text, is 19th cent. and Verdian in its heroic melodies. In 1939 he settled in the USA, moving eventually to Los Angeles where the climate suited one who had contracted tuberculosis in 1936-7. His first major ‘American’ work was the Symphony in 3 Movements of 1945. Yet another turning-point was the ballet Orpheus (1947), which had led Stravinsky to study of Monteverdi, and a meeting with the young Amer. cond. Robert Craft, who (besides an enthusiasm for Stravinsky) combined interest in the Baroque period with intense sympathy for the 2nd Viennese Sch. of Schoenberg, etc. Stravinsky had lately shown awareness of serialism, particularly as practised by Webern, and, spurred by Craft, his work now began to reflect these new interests, as in the Canticum Sacrum of 1955, the Threni of 1958, the ballet Agon, and Movements for pf. and orch. In 1962 he was invited to return to Russ., a triumphant tour ending in his reception by the then Soviet leader Khruschev at the Kremlin. In his final years he wrote short, bare works, many of them religious in feeling and form, at the opposite pole from the opulence of his early successes. He is buried in the island cemetery of San Michele, Venice, near to Diaghilev, as he wished.

Stravinsky's place as a seminal figure in 20th-cent. mus. and individually as a great composer seems assured. Though it used to be said he ‘changed his skin’ every few years, and though he did, superficially at any rate, alter his style more than once, he remained fundamentally himself throughout his life. Like his antithesis Strauss, he was a time-traveller, at home in centuries other than his own. Yet when he touched Pergolesi, Gesualdo, and Tchaikovsky, they became Stravinskyan re-creations. Where the prin. features of Strauss's mus. are complex harmonic and contrapuntal textures, the overriding feature of Stravinsky from first to last is rhythm. It is rhythm, in many wonderful forms from the primitive (Les Noces) to the sophisticated (Rite of Spring), which is the mainspring of his work. With the great Diaghilev ballets he took part in a golden age in assoc. with some of the most extraordinary talents of the century, not only Diaghilev but Nijinsky, Picasso, Bakst, Fokine, and others. Later Cocteau, Auden, and Dylan Thomas came within his orbit. The sense of th. and of the dance is never wholly absent from even his most austere works, such as the Mass of 1948, nor his delight in childlike fun (the Circus Polka, Jeu de cartes, etc.), and his sardonic humour. It seems appropriate that almost his last work was a setting of Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat. His critics once wrote of a ‘soulless’ mus., bare of expression and emotion. As he recedes from us and his mus. comes into perspective, the wrongheadedness of this judgement provokes either mirth or anger. Prin. works:

OPERAS: The Nightingale (1908-9, 1913-14); Mavra (1921-2); Oedipus Rex (1926-7, also can be perf. as oratorio); The Rake's Progress (1947-51).

THEATRE PIECES: Renard, burlesque (1915-16); L'histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale) (1918); Perséphone, melodrama, ten., ch., orch. (1933-4); The Flood, mus. play (1961-2).

BALLETS: The Firebird (Zhar-Ptitsa) (1909-10); Petrushka (1910-11); The Rite of Spring (Vesna Svyashchennaya) (1911-13); Les Noces (1914-17, and revisions); Pulcinella (after Pergolesi) (1919-20); Apollo Musagetes (1927-8); The Fairy's Kiss (Le baiser de la fée) (after Tchaikovsky) (1928, rev. 1950); Jeu de cartes (1936); Circus Polka (1942); Orpheus (1947); Agon (1953, 1956-7).

ORCH.: syms.: No.1 in Eb (1905-7), Sym. in C (1938-40), Symphony in 3 Movements (1942-5); Scherzo Fantastique (1907-8); Fireworks (1908); Suite, The Firebird (first version 1911, 2nd version 1919, 3rd version 1945); Song of the Nightingale, sym.-poem from mus. of the opera (1917), Ragtime, 11 instr. (1918); Suites, small orch., No.1 (1917-25), No.2 (1921); Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1918-20, rev. 1945-7); Suite from Pulcinella, chamber orch. (c.1922, rev. 1947); Divertimento (arr. from The Fairy's Kiss) (1934, rev. 1949); Preludium (orig. for jazz band 1936-7, orch. 1953); Conc., chamber orch. Dumbarton Oaks (1937-8); Danses Concertantes (1941-2); 4 Norwegian Moods (1942); Ode (1943); Scherzo à la Russe (1943-4, version for Paul Whiteman Band 1944); Circus Polka (1944, orch. of pf. piece 1942); Conc. in D, str. (1946); Tango, 19 instr. (1953, orch. of pf. piece 1940); Greetings Prelude (1955); Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum, 3 Gesualdo madrigals recomposed for instr. (1960); Variations (in memoriam Aldous Huxley) (1963-4).

SOLO INSTR. & ORCH.: conc., pf., wind instrs. (1923-4); Capriccio, pf., orch. (1928-9); vn. conc. (1931); Ebony Concerto, cl., chamber orch. (1945); Movements, pf., orch. (1958-9).

VOICES & INSTR(S).: The King of the Stars, cantata, male ch., orch. (1911-12); Symphony of Psalms, ch., orch. (1930); Babel, cantata, narr., male ch., orch. (1944); Mass, mixed ch., double wind quintet (1944-8); Cantata, sop., ten., female ch., chamber ens. (1951-2); Canticum Sacrum ad honorem Sancti Marci Nominis, ten., bar., ch., orch. (1955); Threni, sop., cont., 2 tens., bass, basso profundo, ch., orch. (1957-8); A Sermon, A Narrative, and a Prayer, cantata, alto, ten., spkr., ch., orch. (1960-1); Abraham and Isaac, bar., chamber orch. (1962-3); Introitus (T. S. Eliot in memoriam), tens., basses, chamber ens. (1945); Requiem Canticles, alto, bass, ch., orch. (1965-6).

UNACC. VOICES: Saucers: 4 Russian Peasant Songs, unacc. female vv. (1914-17, rev. for equal vv., 4 hn., 1954); Pater Noster, mixed ch. (1926); Credo, mixed ch. (1932, 1949, 1964); Ave Maria, mixed ch. (1934, 1949); Little Canon, 2 tens. (1947); The Dove Descending, mixed ch. (1962).

CHAMBER MUSIC: 3 Pieces, cl. (1919); Concertino, str. qt. (1920), arr. for 12 instr. (1952); Octet, fl., cl., 2 bn., 2 tpt., ten. tb., bass tb. (1922-3, rev. 1952); Duo Concertant, vn., pf. (1931-2); Suite Italienne (arr. from Pulcinella), vn. or vc., pf. (1932); Elegy, vn. con sordini (1944); Septet, cl., hn., bn., pf., vn., va., vc. (1952-3); Epitaphium, fl., cl., hp. (1959).

PIANO: Sonata in F# minor (1903-4); 4 Studies (1908); 3 Easy Pieces, duet (1914-15); 5 Easy Pieces, duet (1916-17); Piano Rag-Music (1919); Sonata (1924); Serenade in A (1925); Conc., 2 solo pf. (1931, 1934-5); Tango (1940, arr. for 19 instr. 1953); Circus Polka (1942, arr. for orch. 1944); Sonata, 2 pf. (1943-4).

SONGS WITH PIANO OR OTHER INSTR.: Faun and Shepherdess, song suite, mez., orch. (1906); Pastorale, sop., pf. (1907); 2 Melodies, mez., pf. (1907-8); 2 Verlaine Poems, bar., pf. (1910, with orch. 1951); 2 Balmont Poems, high v., pf. (1911, with chamber orch. 1954); 3 Japanese Lyrics, sop., pf. (1912-13); Pribaoutki, v., instr. (1914); Cat's Cradle Songs, alto, 3 cls. (1915-16); Berceuse, v., pf. (1917); 3 Shakespeare Songs, mez., fl., cl., va. (1953); In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, ten., str. qt., 4 tbs. (1954); Elegy for J.F.K. [J. F. Kennedy, President of USA], bar., 3 cls. (1964); The Owl and the Pussycat, v., pf. (1966).

ARRANGEMENTS: Chopin: Nocturne in Ab and Valse brillante in Eb, orch. for Les Sylphides (1909); Bach: Vom Himmel hoch, mixed ch., orch. (1955-6); 2 Preludes and Fugues from the ‘48’, str., ww. (c.1969); Gesualdo: Tres sacrae cantiones, reconstructed parts (1957 and 1959); Sibelius: Canzonetta, Op.62a (orig. for str., 1911), arr. for 4 hns., 2 cls., hp., db. (1963); Wolf: 2 Sacred Songs from Spanisches Liederbuch, mez., 9 instr. (1968). Other works: Song of the Volga Boatmen, orch. (1917); La Marseillaise, solo vn. (1919); The Star-Spangled Banner, orch., optional ch. (1941).

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