Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky (Russian: {{lang|ru|????? ????????? ???????????}}) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian-American composer of modern classical music. He composed in the neo-classical and serialist styles, but he is best known for two works from his earlier, Russian period: Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) and L'oiseau de feu (The Firebird). For some, these daring and innovative ballets practically reinvented the genre. Stravinsky also wrote in a broad spectrum of ensemble combinations and classical forms. His oeuvre included everything from symphonies to piano miniatures.

Stylistic periods

Stravinsky's career largely falls into three distinct stylistic periods. Most of his compositions can be placed in one of the three.

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The Primitive, or Russian, Period

The first of Stravinsky's major stylistic periods (excluding some early minor works) was inaugurated by the three ballets he composed for Diaghilev. The ballets have several shared characteristics: they are scored for extremely large orchestras; they use Russian folk themes and motifs; and they bear the mark of Rimsky-Korsakov's imaginative scoring and instrumentation.

Related Topics:
Ballets - Folk

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The first of the ballets, L'oiseau de feu, is notable for its unusual introduction (triplets in the low basses) and sweeping orchestration. Petrushka, too, is distinctively scored and the first of Stravinsky's ballets to draw on folk mythology. But it is the third ballet, The Rite of Spring, that is generally considered the apotheosis of Stravinsky's "Russian Period". Here, the composer draws on the brutalism of pagan Russia, reflecting these sentiments in roughly-drawn, stinging motifs that appear throughout the work. There are several famous passages in the work, but two are of particular note: the opening theme played on a bassoon with notes at the very top of its register, almost out of range; and the thumping, off kilter eighth-note motif played by strings and accented by French horns on off-rhythms (See Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) for a more detailed account of this work).

Related Topics:
Orchestration - Mythology - Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)

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Other pieces from this period include: Renard (1916), Histoire du soldat (A Soldier's Tale) (1918), and Les Noces (The Wedding) (1923).

Related Topics:
1916 - Histoire du soldat - 1918 - Les Noces - 1923

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The Neo-Classical Period

The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style, slightly overlapping the first, is marked by two works: Pulcinella 1920 and the Octet (1923) for wind instruments. Both of these works feature what was to become a hallmark of this period; that is, Stravinsky's return, or "looking back", to the classical music of Mozart and Bach and their contemporaries. This "neo-classical" style involved the abandonment of the large orchestras demanded by the ballets. In these new works, written roughly between 1920 and 1950, Stravinsky turns largely to wind instruments, the piano, and choral and chamber works.

Related Topics:
Pulcinella - 1920 - 1923 - Mozart - Bach - Neo-classical - 1950

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Other works such as Oedipus Rex (1927), Apollon Musagete (1928) and the Dumbarton Oaks concerto continue this trend.

Related Topics:
Oedipus Rex - 1927 - 1928 - Dumbarton Oaks

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Some larger works from this period are the three symphonies: the Symphonie des Psaumes (Symphony of Psalms) (1930), Symphony in C (1940) and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). Apollon, Persephone (1933) and Orpheus (1947) also mark Stravinsky's concern, during this period, of not only returning to "Classic" music but also returning to "Classic" themes: in these instances, the mythology of the ancient Greeks.

Related Topics:
1930 - 1940 - 1945 - 1933 - 1947 - Greeks

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The pinnacle of this period is the opera The Rake's Progress completed in 1951. This opera, written to a libretto by Auden and based on the etchings of Hogarth, encapsulates everything that Stravinsky had perfected in the previous 20 years of his neo-classic period. The music is direct but quirky; it borrows from classic tonal harmony but also interjects surprising dissonances; it features Stravinsky's trademark off-rhythms; and it harkens back to the operas and themes of Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart.

Related Topics:
The Rake's Progress - 1951 - Auden - Hogarth - Monteverdi - Gluck - Mozart

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After the opera's completion Stravinsky never wrote another "neo-classic" work and instead began writing the music that came to define his final stylistic change.

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The Serialist, or Twelve Tone Period

Only after the death of Arnold Schoenberg, the inventor of the twelve tone system, in 1951 did Stravinsky begin making use of the technique in his own works. No doubt, Stravinsky was aided in his understanding of, or even conversion to, the twelve tone method by his confidant and helper Robert Craft, who had long been advocating the change. Regardless, the next fifteen years were spent writing the works in this style.

Related Topics:
Arnold Schoenberg - Twelve tone system - 1951 - Robert Craft

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Stravinsky first began to dabble in the twelve tone technique in smaller vocal works such as the Cantata (1952), Three Songs from Shakespeare (1953) and In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), as if he were testing the system. He later began expanding his use of the technique in works often based on biblical texts, such as Threni (1958), A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer (1961), and The Flood (1962).

Related Topics:
1952 - 1953 - 1954 - 1958 - 1961 - 1962

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An important transitional work of this period in Stravinsky's work, was a return to the ballet: Agon, a work for twelve dancers written from 1954 to 1957. Some numbers of Agon recollect the "white-note" tonality of the neo-classic period, while others (the Bransle Gay, e.g.) display his unique re-interpretation of serial method. The ballet is thus a sort of miniature encyclopedia of Stravinsky, containing many of the signatures to be found throughout his compositions, whether primitivist, neo-classic, or serial: rhythmic quirkiness and experimentation, harmonic ingenuity, and a deft ear for masterful orchestration. Indeed, these characteristics are what make Stravinsky's output so unique when compared with the work of contemporaneous serial composers.

Related Topics:
1954 - 1957

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