Tag Archives: Stravinsky (Igor)

Octet for Wind Instruments, by Igor Stravinsky

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Igor Stravinsky. Octet for wind instruments program note

Anonymous, undated portrait of Stravinsky (1920s or 1930s)

Igor Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments marks the beginning of his so-called neo-classical period. Not for the first or last time, it marks great discontinuity with what audiences expected of him.

Stravinsky’s earliest works show the influence of his teacher Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and the Russian nationalistic school. The impresario Serge Diaghilev commissioned his breakout work, the ballet Firebird. Its premiere in Paris in 1910 made Stravinsky an international celebrity.

He followed that success with two more very Russian ballets, Petrushka (1911) and Rite of Spring (1913).  When the First World War broke out, Stravinsky was stranded in Switzerland and needed money. So he intended his small-scale drama The Soldier’s Tale to provide some, but a flu epidemic prevented its performance after the premiere. In this piece, Stravinsky deemphasized Russianness.

After its premiere in Lausanne (1918), no one heard it until its Paris premiere in 1924. The Octet received its premiere in 1923. Another deliberately un-Russian piece, it confused at least some of its audience. Continue reading →

L’histoire du soldat, or, The soldier’s tale by Igor Stravinsky

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L'histoire du soldat, a soldier's tale. program noteIgor Stravinsky didn’t set out to write a masterpiece when he composed L’histoire du soldat (or The Soldier’s Tale).

The popular cliché of the starving artist came too close to home for him when World War One broke out. He needed cash.

For that purpose, the piece utterly failed. Continue reading →

Firebird, by Igor Stravinsky

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Firebird

Rendering of Firebird costume by Léon Bakst, 1910

In 1909, Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballet Russe, had a ballet based on two Russian legends in mind. Neither his resident composer Nikolai Tcherepnin nor Anatoly Lyadov accepted his request to compose the music. Therefore he turned to the virtually unknown Igor Stravinsky.

The resulting ballet, Firebird, turned out to be a turning point in the careers of both men and one of the most successful pieces of twentieth-century music.

Diaghilev had encountered Stravinsky’s music before, having asked him to orchestrate some Chopin pieces for an earlier ballet.

But Stravinsky’s teacher and mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who had only recently died, detested ballet. Nothing in Stravinsky’s lessons prepared him to compose one, but he shared a love of ballet with another of his idols, Peter Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky cheerfully accepted the commission and went to Paris for the premiere, which took place on June 25, 1910. Continue reading →

The raucous premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

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By the time Stravinsky mounted  Rite of Spring in 1913, history had already seen many premieres of operas and other theatrical works where audiences loudly disliked what they saw. In some cases, such as the premiere of Rossini’s Barber of Seville, the noise came from a paid claque. In Rossini’s case, he dared to use the same story as an already successful opera by Giovanni Paisiello, who sent his friends to shout it down. But what happened to Rite of Spring (original title Sacre du Printemps) topped anything that had happened before. Continue reading →

Schoenberg vs Stravinsky

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Schoenberg at the blackboard

Arnold Schoenberg, teaching a class

Revised July 20, 2019

Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky emerged between the two World Wars as leaders of two radically different approaches to writing modern music. Not only rivals, they personally despised each other. Continue reading →

Jeu de cartes by Igor Stravinsky

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After beginning his career as a very Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky became an international composer in at least two very different ways.

First, he decided never to return to Russia after the Revolution of 1917.

Although he lived in France, he traveled a lot.

By the time he moved to the United States in 1939, he had already made numerous contacts.

Second, he opened himself to influences from all over the world.

Despite the French title, Stravinsky wrote Jeu de cartes (Card Game) on commission from American choreographer George Balanchine and the newly formed American Ballet in 1936. By that time, he had been writing in his neoclassical style for more than fifteen years. Continue reading →