Igor Stravinsky (jan 1, 1882 – jan 1, 1978)

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a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.

Stravinsky
A. Stravinsky’s The Firebird and Petrushka
1. Stravinsky agreed to Diaghilev’s request for a Russian folk subject.
2. The first of Stravinsky’s ballets was The Firebird, which also exists as a popular suite
for orchestra, sans ballet.
3. As he composed The Firebird, Stravinsky had an idea that would develop into The Rite
of Spring. He chose, however, to first write a comic piece: Petrushka.
4. With the second tableau of Petrushka, Stravinsky moved into a new realm—
octatonicism became a tonality in its own right.
5. The Petrushka-chord (Ex. 28-9) illustrates outbursts of emotion among the characters.

Neoclassicism
1. After shocking the world with the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky went in an entirely different direction in 1923: neoclassicism.
2. This style was marked by “objectivity,” which composers conveyed by bringing back gestures from previous periods.
C. Stravinsky’s Neoclassical Path
1. At the end of World War I (1918), Stravinsky composed Histoire du soldat.
2. Soon thereafter, Stravinsky wrote a work based on eighteenth-century music: Pulcinella.
3. These two works (Histoire du soldat and Pulcinella) were stage works, but Stravinsky soon looked to instrumental pieces for this developing new style.
4. In the 1920s, irony triumphed over sincerity as an artistic aim.

In Search of Utopia: Stravinsky at Schoenberg and Twelve-Tone Technique
1. During the 1920s, Stravinsky made comments that irked Schoenberg.
a. Stravinsky said that instead of the music of the future, he wrote the music of the
present.
b. He also made a derogatory comment concerning serial composers.
2. Schoenberg thought that Stravinsky’s use of old techniques was not moving the art forward.
3. Ultimately, however, both composers rejected Romanticism (“sauce”) for objectivity.
4. The sources of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique have been debated for some time.

Stravinsky wrote five autobiographies that all contradict one another. His move to France drastically changed his compositional style, and his opinions on music were fluid with these transitions.

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