Del.icio.usIgor Stravinsky
Brought up in an apartment in St. Petersburg, dominated by his father and elder brother, and married to his cousin whom he had known since early childhood, Stravinsky's early childhood was a mix of experience that no doubt little prepared him for the cosmopolitan artist he was to become. His father was a bass singer at the Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, but Stravinsky came late to composition, originally studying to be a lawyer. In 1902, at the age of 20, Stravinsky became the pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, probably the leading Russian composer of the time.
Stravinsky left Russia for the first time in 1910 for Paris to attend the premiere of his ballet The Firebird. Stravinsky's time in Paris, and his stylistic development there, can be traced through the three major ballets he composed during that period for the Ballet Russes: The Firebird, Petroushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). Here we see a composer moving from a style, in the Firebird, that draws largely on Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, and Rimsky, to Petroushka's emphasis on dual-tonality, and to, finally, the savage and brutal ployphonies and dissonances of The Rite. This development could also have had something to do with his background and upbringing, which, after the excitement and exhiliration of Paris, must have seemed quite provincial. As he himself said, with these premieres his inetention was 'sending them all to hell.'
Even so, that Stravinsky was able to survive such a tethered upbringing with his identity intact testifies to his unquenchable thirst for discovery, which was to last all his life. He displayed an inexhaustible desire to learn and explore art, literature, and life. This desire manifested itself in several of his Paris collaborations. Not only was he the principal composer for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, but Stravinsky also collaborated with Pablo Picasso (Pulcinella, 1920), Jean Cocteau (Oedipus Rex, 1927) and George Balanchine (Apollon Musagete, 1928).
Relatively short of stature and not conventionally handsome, Stravinsky was nevertheless remarkably photogenic, as many pictures show. Although a notorious philanderer (even rumoured to have affairs with high-class partners such as Coco Chanel) Stravinsky was also a family man and a considerable amount of his time, efforts and expenditure was occupied by his concern for his sons and daughters and their lives. He married Katerina, his first wife—and cousin—at an early age, but the true love of his life, and partner until his death, was his second wife Vera.
When Stravinsky met her she was married to the painter and stage designer Serge Sudeikin, but Stravinsky soon began an affair with her which led to her leaving her husband. From then until the death of Katerina in 1939, Stravinsky led a deft double-life, spending some of his time with his first family and the rest with Vera. Katerina Stravinsky soon learned of the relationship and accepted it as inevitable and permanent. After her death Stravinsky and Vera were married in New York, where they had gone from France to escape the war in 1940.
Patronage too was never far away. In the early twenties Leopold Stokowski was able to give him regular support, through a pseudonymous 'benefactor'. Another remarkable aspect of his life was his ability to attract commissions: most of his work from the The Firebird onwards was written for specific occasions and paid for generously.
For someone with such a confining background, he proved remarkably adept at becoming a 'man of the world' , acquiring a keen instinct for business matters which puts him in a minority of composers (although it should be mentioned that his copyright difficulties were legendary), and appearing relaxed and comfortable in many of the world's cities: Paris, Venice, Berlin, London, New York all saw his successful appearance as pianist and conductor. Most people who knew him through dealings connected with performances spoke of him as polite, courteous and helpful. For example, Otto Klemperer, who knew Schoenberg well, said he always found Stravinsky much more co-operative and easy to deal with. At the same time he had an aristocratic disregard of his social inferiors: Robert Craft was embarrassed by his habit of tapping a glass with a fork and loudly demanding attention in restaurants.
Having left Russia in 1920 and spending most of his time until World War II in Paris (except for the World War I years, which he spent in Switzerland), Stravinsky was to live most of his life from the 1950's until his death in 1971 in the United States. Stravinsky had adapted to life in France, but moving to America at 58 was a very different prospect. For a time he preserved a ring of emigré Russian friends and contacts, but eventually realised that this would not sustain his intellectual and professional life in the USA. When he planned to write an opera with W. H. Auden, the need to acquire more familiarity with the English-speaking world coincided with the arrival in his life of the conductor and musicologist Robert Craft, who lived with him until his death, acting as interpreter, chronicler, assistant conductor and factotum for countless musical and social tasks.
Stravinsky's taste in literature was wide and reflects his constant desire for new discoveries. The texts and literary sources for his work began with a period of interest in Russian folklore, progressed to classical authors and the latin liturgy, and moved on to contemporary France (André Gide, in 'Persephone') and eventually English literature: Auden, Eliot, and mediaeval English verse. At the end of his life he was even setting Hebrew scripture in 'Abraham and Isaac'.
Igor Stravinsky died in 1971 at the age of 89, having traversed most of the 20th Century, including many of its modern classical music styles, and influenced composers both during and after his lifetime. He is buried in Venice; the grave is close to the tomb of his youthful collaborator Diaghilev. But Stravinsky also died in the United States, an emigre, a cosmopolitan, having never returned to his native Russia. How fitting, then, that he has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard.