Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky ranks among the most transformative figures in twentieth-century composition, his seven-decade trajectory shaping musical thought more decisively than that of any peer. Beyond matters of rhythm and harmony, the defining trait of his output lies in its ceaseless stylistic reinvention. Beginning within the orbit of late Russian nationalism and concluding with a rigorous, personal idiom rooted in twelve-tone procedures, he adopted successive aesthetic personas across his lifetime while preserving a singular core identity.

Born to a leading bass at the Mariinsky Theater and to a capable though non-professional pianist mother, he received only the standard musical education afforded to Russian children of his social class. After enrolling in law school he pursued private lessons in composition and orchestration under Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The 1909 orchestral scores Scherzo fantastique and Fireworks so struck Sergei Diaghilev that the impresario commissioned Stravinsky first to orchestrate and then to create original ballets for his company. The resulting early trilogy—The Firebird (1909-1910), Petrushka (1910-1911), and especially The Rite of Spring (1911-1913)—secured his international standing more firmly than any subsequent works; the scandalous uproar at the Rite premiere remains among the most storied incidents in concert history.

Stravinsky and his family remained in Switzerland throughout the war years before resettling in France in 1920. The jazz-tinged scores of the 1910s and 1920s, among them Ragtime (1918) and The Soldier’s Tale (1918), yielded to a pronounced neo-classical discipline evident in such varied pieces as the ballet Pulcinella (1919-1920), the Symphony of Psalms (1930), and, much later, the opera The Rake’s Progress (1948-1951). This turn exerted wide influence, particularly upon the emerging generation of American composers who took Stravinsky as their chief exemplar. He had already begun appearing in public as conductor and pianist, chiefly in his own music. During the 1930s he visited the Americas repeatedly and fulfilled several U.S. commissions, including the Concerto in E flat, “Dumbarton Oaks.”

Following the successive deaths of his daughter, wife, and mother within less than a year, he relocated permanently to the United States in 1940, establishing residence in California alongside his second wife. The works composed between 1940 and 1950 blend earlier stylistic threads yet remain anchored in Russian or French precedents. His artistic outlook shifted decisively once Robert Craft entered his circle as musical assistant, preparing rehearsals, accompanying tours, and later collaborating on memoirs. Craft is recognized for encouraging Stravinsky’s adoption of twelve-tone methods as compositional resources. Characteristically, Stravinsky applied these principles in freshly inventive ways, yielding such distinctive scores as Movements (1958-1959) for piano and orchestra, Variations: Aldous Huxley in Memoriam (1963), and the Requiem Canticles (1965-1966). Craft also readied the performers for the comprehensive series of Columbia Records LPs that Stravinsky led throughout the stereo era, encompassing virtually his entire significant output. Although health declined in his final years, he maintained compositional activity until shortly before his death in April 1971.