Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) was a Russian-born composer, conductor, and pianist whose ballets and successive stylistic changes reshaped 20th-century music.

Polyrhythm: The simultaneous use of two or more distinct rhythmic patterns. Stravinsky layered competing rhythmic patterns to create unstable, propulsive musical surfaces.
The Firebird: A 1910 ballet by Stravinsky, based on Russian folklore and created for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Its vivid orchestration made Stravinsky famous and established his early ballet style.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: A Russian composer and teacher known for orchestral color and operas based on Russian subjects. Rimsky-Korsakov taught Stravinsky and influenced his early command of orchestration.
Saint Petersburg Conservatory: A music conservatory founded in Saint Petersburg in 1862, among Russia’s oldest professional music schools. Stravinsky studied there with Rimsky-Korsakov after beginning his musical training privately.
Arnold Schoenberg: An Austrian-born composer who developed atonality and the twelve-tone method. Schoenberg’s systematic serial approach offers a counterpoint to Stravinsky’s changing, eclectic modernism.
Polytonality: The simultaneous use of two or more musical keys. His early ballets often set incompatible harmonies against one another.
Petrushka: A 1911 Stravinsky ballet about a puppet whose feelings become painfully human. Its layered rhythms and clashing harmonies push beyond the lush orchestral language of The Firebird.
Sergei Diaghilev: A Russian impresario who founded the Ballets Russes and commissioned works across the arts. Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky’s early ballets and helped launch his international career.
Ballets Russes: A Paris-based ballet company founded by Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. The company commissioned the ballets that established Stravinsky’s reputation in Europe.
Claude Debussy: A French composer whose music is associated with innovative harmony, timbre, and musical form. Debussy’s fluid sonorities contrast with Stravinsky’s sharper rhythmic profiles, despite their shared Parisian milieu.

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