Igor Stravinsky
20th Century · 1882–1971
Igor Stravinsky changed music more than once. Born near St. Petersburg in 1882, the son of an opera singer, he studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and was plucked from obscurity by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes staged The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring in Paris. The Rite's 1913 premiere famously ended in an audience riot.
War and revolution cut him off from Russia; he lived in Switzerland and France, then settled in Los Angeles. Restless by temperament, he kept reinventing himself, moving from Russian folk-flavored ballets to cool, pared-back music modeled on the eighteenth century, and then, in his seventies, to the austere methods of much younger composers.
Petrushka, his ballet about a puppet who comes to life at a fair, is a vivid way in. Then try L'Histoire du soldat, a theater piece for seven players about a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil.
107 works in the catalog, across 5 genres. Log what you listen to with Opus, the classical music journal for iPhone.
Chamber
- Octet for Wind Instruments
- Three Pieces for Clarinet
- Concertino for 12 Instruments
- Concertino for String Quartet
- Divertimento For violin and piano
- Double Canon, "Raoul Dufy in Memoriam" For string quartet
- Duo concertante For violin and piano
- Elegy For solo viola
- Epitaphium For flute, clarinet and harp
- Fanfare for a New Theater For 2 trumpets
- Instrumental Miniatures For 15 players
- Pastorale: Song Without Words For violin and woodwind quartet
- Pour Pablo Picasso For clarinet
- Ragtime For 11 instruments
- Septet
- Suite italienne
- Three Pieces for String Quartet
Keyboard
- Circus Polka
- Concerto for 2 solo pianos
- Five Easy Pieces For piano 4 hands
- Four Piano Etudes
- Les cinq doigts
- Piano-Rag-Music
- Piano Sonata
- Piano Sonata in F sharp minor
- Scherzo
- Serenade in A major
- Sonata for 2 Pianos
- Tango
- Three Easy Pieces For piano 4 hands
- Valse pour les enfants
- Étude For pianola
Orchestral
- Concerto in E flat major, "Dumbarton Oaks" For chamber orchestra
- Danses concertantes
- Ebony Concerto For clarinet and jazz band
- Symphonies of Wind Instruments
- Symphony in Three Movements
- Violin Concerto
- 4 Orchestral Etudes
- Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
- Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
- Concerto in D major, "Basel" For string orchestra
- Divertimento Suite from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss
- Fireworks
- Funeral Song Symphonic poem
- Greeting Prelude
- Le chant du rossignol Symphonic poem
- Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum
- Movements for Piano and Orchestra
- Ode
- Praeludium For jazz band
- Scherzo fantastique
- Scherzo à la russe
- Song of the Volga Boatmen
- Suite no. 1 For chamber orchestra
- Suite no. 2 For chamber orchestra
- Symphony in C major
- Symphony in E flat major, op. 1
- Tango For chamber orchestra
- Variations: Aldous Huxley in memoriam
Stage
- Agon Ballet
- L'Histoire du soldat Theatre piece
- Les Noces Ballet
- Petrushka Ballet
- Pulcinella Ballet
- The Firebird Ballet
- The Rite of Spring Ballet
- Apollo Ballet
- Le Rossignol Opera
- Mavra Opera
- Oedipus Rex Oratorio
- Orpheus Ballet
- Perséphone Theatre piece
- Renard Opera
- Scènes de ballet Ballet
- The Fairy’s Kiss Ballet
- The Flood Theatre piece
- The Rake's Progress Opera
Vocal
- Symphony of Psalms For chorus and orchestra
- Abraham and Isaac Cantata
- A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer Cantata
- Ave Maria
- Babel Cantata
- Berceuses du Chat
- Cantata
- Canticum Sacrum Cantata
- Credo
- Elegy for J.F.K.
- Faun and Shepherdess For voice and orchestra
- Four Russian Peasant Songs
- Four Russian Songs
- Four Songs For voice, flute, harp and guitar
- In memoriam Dylan Thomas
- Mass
- Pater noster
- Pribaoutki
- Requiem canticles For 2 vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra
- The Dove Descending Breaks the Air
- The King of the Stars Cantata
- Three Japanese Lyrics
- Three Songs: Recollections of my Childhood
- Three Songs from William Shakespeare
- Threni
- Trois Petite Chansons
- Two Melodies, op. 6
- Two Poems by Paul Verlaine
- Two Poems of Balmont
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