“Igor Stravinsky was born in the spring and died in the spring. In a sense, he lived his whole life in a springtime of creativity. All his music is spring-like, newly budding, rooted in the familiar past, yet fresh and sharp, with that stinging, paradoxical combination of the inevitable and the unexpected.”
On Stravinsky’s birthday, enjoy this brief appreciation, narrated by Leonard Bernstein, assembled not long after Stravinsky’s death:
I especially got a kick out of the cowboy reception, around the 9-minute mark.
Also on this date, in 1908, Stravinsky’s “Fireworks” was first performed, at the wedding of Rimsky-Korsakov’s daughter, Nadezhda, to Stravinsky’s professional rival, Maximillian Steinberg. The wedding took place a few days before Rimsky-Korsakov’s death. Stravinsky received the commission for his breakthrough ballet, “The Firebird,” in part because Serge Diaghilev heard the piece and was impressed with his orchestration.
Stravinsky conducts “Fireworks,” from his Russian nationalist period, in Japan:
Stravinsky, in his last public appearance, conducts his neoclassical masterpiece, “Pulcinella”:
Stravinsky conducts one of my favorite works from his serial period, “Agon”:
Stravinsky’s final masterpiece, “Requiem Canticles,” was first performed at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre in 1966. Against expectations, Stravinsky again conducted. The performance is led here by his assistant, Robert Craft:
“Requiem Canticles” would be repeated at Stravinsky’s funeral five years later.
As a bonus, here’s an article I wrote on Stravinsky in Princeton for the Trenton Times in 2016:
https://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/2016/12/classical_music_puo_pugc_so_pe.html
Happy birthday, Igor Stravinsky, and happy anniversary, Maximillian and Nadezhda Steinberg (née Rimskaya-Korsakova)!
