Had
he lived until his next birthday, Stravinsky would have turned 89 in 1971, the
year he died. Interestingly, the Russian/American composer had already written
an autobiography when he was in his 50s, well before his arrival in the U.S.
Born
in Tsarist Russia in 1882, Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky grew up the third of
four sons of an opera singer and according to IMBD, stood only
5 feet 3 inches tall (1.60 m). He began
piano lessons when he was nine but didn’t turn to music seriously until 1902
after briefly studying law.
Stravinsky first gained
major recognition with his composition of The
Firebird for the Diaghilev ballet based on a Russian folk tale that the
Ballet Russes debuted in Paris in 1910. He was 28 at the time. He and Diaghilev
(who died in 1929) would continue their partnership for a couple decades. Stravinsky
would go on to become known as the “Father of Modern Classical Music” and one
of the greatest composers of the 20th century.
In 1913, Le Sacre du
Printemps or The Rite of Spring,
caused a near riot at its premiere because of the dissonant harmonies and
primitive rhythms Stravinsky used and the then-shocking choreography by
Nijinsky depicting the ballet’s subject of “pagan rites in ancient Russia.” A year later, the score became a respected
concert piece that remains as exciting to watch an orchestra play today as it
is to listen to.
In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution ended Stravinsky’s
ownership of property in Russia so he moved his family from their home in the
Ukraine to Switzerland. Three years later, the Stravinskys moved again to
France (the composer became a French citizen in 1934). His musical fame led to extensive
international travel in the 1930s. During that busy period, tuberculosis took
the life of a daughter in 1938 and put Stravinsky himself into a sanatorium for
several months; his wife and his mother also died in 1939, the year he moved to
the U.S. He was married again in 1940 to a dancer, Vera de Bosset, whose former
husband was a Ballet Russes designer. In 1941, the couple moved to West
Hollywood and eventually became American citizens. Conductor Robert Craft is
credited with promoting Stravinsky’s U.S success and his move to serialist
composition. In 1962, Stravinsky returned to Russia for the one time since he
left.
Although
he continued to write, tour and conduct well into his eighties, his health
began to rapidly deteriorate in 1967. He had lived in New York only a few years
before he died of the respiratory problems that had plagued him since
childhood.
In
spite of the difficulties he encountered with the acceptance of his “radical”
music, Musical Academy Online, http://www.musicacademyonline.com/composer/biographies.php?bid=88
reports that Stravinsky did have a caustic sense of humor
and is quoted as saying of Vivaldi that he had “not written hundreds of concertos
but rather the same concerto hundreds of times.”
Stravinsky’s modern classical music (ballets, operas,
symphonies, concertos and many more works) may not appeal to everyone but he
did compose for jazz artists too including Woody Herman. He also contributed to
the soundtrack of Disney’s Fantasia and is the only classical composer honored with a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Sources:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Stravinsky-Igor.html
http://www.musicacademyonline.com/composer/biographies.php?bid=88
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