|
|
|
Igor Stravinsky
By
Shannon Cullen Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia on June 17th, 1882 and brought up in St. Petersburg. His childhood, as recorded in his autobiography, was troublesome. “I never came across anyone who had any real affection for me.” In 1890, his father, a bass singer, took him to the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’. The performance, his first exposure to an orchestra, mesmerised him and he is reputed to have met Tchaikovsky backstage after the performance. By the age of fourteen, he had mastered Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G Minor and was writing piano reductions of other composers work. Despite his enthusiasm, however, his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. He was enrolled to study law at the St. Petersburg University in 1901 but it did not suit him and he attended barely fifty sessions in four years. With the death of his father in 1902, he was able to devote more time to his music. In 1905, on the advice of Rimsky-Korsakov, the leading Russian composer of the time, he decided not to enroll in the St Petersburg Conservatorium. Instead he received twice-weekly tuition in composition from the older composer, who became like a second father to him. In the same year, he became engaged to his cousin whom he had known since childhood. They were married in 1906.
In 1909, his Feu d’
Artifice (Fireworks) was performed in St. Petersburg where it was heard by
the Russian Impresario, Sergei Diaghilev and the director of the Ballet Russes
in Paris. Diaghilev was suitably
impressed to commission Stravinsky to undertake orchestrations and then a
full-length ballet score ‘The
Firebird’.
In 1920, due to his wife’s tuberculosis, he moved his family to the south of France. His wife died in 1938 and their daughter, having caught the disease from her mother, passed away the following year. To take his mind of these losses, he accepted an invitation to lecture at Harvard University in the US where he was to reside until 1971, becoming a naturalised citizen in 1945. Relatively short in stature and not conventionally handsome, Stravinsky was nevertheless photogenic. More photos exist of him than any other composer in history. Stravinsky showed a keen interest in the folklore of all the countries he resided in and this is reflected in many works, i.e. his Ebony Concerto (the influence jazz in the US) and the opera The Rakes Progress (English poetry and art). His styles cover all types of music from formalism, neo-classicism to serialism. However, in all his works, certain qualities remain constant. First and foremost is clarity of sound, an almost transparent texture heightened by a masterful use of orchestration. Along with this is an approach to rhythm that articulates his melodies with certain dryness, adding to the clarity of sound. He continued to compose late into his life and at the age of eighty, he began a grueling schedule to record all his works as conductor. These records serve as a valuable documentation of his ideas.
He died at the age of eighty-eight in New York City and is buried in Venice,
Italy next to Diaghilev. He has a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and posthumously received the Grammy Award
for Lifetime Achievement in 1987. Igor Stravinsky was a Russian composer, born on June 17th, 1882. He was not a happy person, but was introduced to music when he w as 8 and his father took him to see the ballet ‘Sleeping Beauty’. He was amazed by the orchestra and began learning piano. Although he loved music, his parents wanted him to be a lawyer and sent him to university. After his father died, he spent more time developing his music. He had lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov, an older Russian composer. Stravinsky’s Fireworks, was performed in 1909. After this, he was asked to write full-length ballets. Among his famous works is Petrushka, which is a sad story about a doll that comes to life because of love.
|
|
Last modified: April 13, 2009 |
