Contents
Igor Stravinsky
Composing The Rite of Spring and reshaping twentieth-century musical rhythm.
The Firebird · The Rite of Spring
- Born
- 17 June 1882
- Birthplace
- Oranienbaum, Russia (now Lomonosov)
- Died
- 6 April 1971
More people
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer whose career moved through strikingly different styles. Ballet, chamber music, opera and sacred works all became settings for his rhythmic and formal experiments.
Early life
Musical family
His father was an operatic bass in St Petersburg.
Private study
Studied law while taking composition lessons from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Career
- 1909–1913
Ballets Russes
Commissions from Sergei Diaghilev brought international recognition.
- 1910s–1930s
European career
Lived in Switzerland and France, developing new approaches to musical form.
- 1939 onwards
American years
Moved to the United States and later explored serial composition.
Selected work
The Firebird
Ballet score drawing on Russian fairy-tale material.
The Rite of Spring
A ballet driven by shifting accents and forceful orchestral blocks.
The Rake’s Progress
An opera using a neoclassical musical language.
Beyond work
Migration
Became a French citizen and later a US citizen.
Conducting
Recorded and conducted many of his own works.
Sources & photo credit
Biography ↗Life and work ↗Photo: George Grantham Bain Collection. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
