STRAVINSKY, Igor
b Oranienbaum, near St Petersburg, 17 June 1882
d New York, 6 April 1971, aged eighty-eight
His father was a singer in the St Petersburg Imperial Opera. He learnt music as a child, but his parents refused to allow him a musical career. Instead, he went to St Petersburg University to study criminal law and legal philosophy; but he was discontented, and in 1902 asked the advice of Rimsky-Korsakov. Through him Stravinsky's work came to the attention of Diaghilev, who commissioned Firebird, and other ballets soon followed. He married in 1906, and at the beginning of World War I moved his family to Switzerland for health reasons; but the October Revolution in Russia meant the drying up of his finances and the confiscation of his property in Russia, so he remained in exile. He settled in France in 1920, conducting and playing piano for his livelihood, and in 1934 became a French citizen. He toured all over Europe and America until 1937. The years 1935 to 1939 were a period of ill-health, in which he lost his wife, his mother and a daughter. He then left Europe for the USA, re-married there in 1940, and shortly after the end of the war became an American citizen. He resumed touring in his later years, visiting Russia for the first time since he left it forty-eight years earlier.
1898 (16)
Tarantella for piano
1902 (20)
Storm Cloud, for voice and piano
Scherzo for piano
1904 (22)
Sonata in F# minor for piano
Cantata for mixed choir and piano (lost)
The Mushrooms going to War, for bass and piano
1906 (24)
Conductor and Tarantula, for voice and piano (lost)
1907 (25)
Symphony in Eb
Faun and Shepherdess, for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Pastorale for soprano and piano
1907-8 (25-6)
Two Songs for mezzo-soprano and piano
1908 (26)
Scherzo Fantastique, for orchestra
Lament, for orchestra
Fireworks, for orchestra
Chant Funebre, for wind instruments (lost)
Four Studies for piano
1908-14 (26-32)
Le Rossignol, opera
1909 (27)
Orchestration of Grieg's Kobold
Orchestration of Chopin's Nocturne in Ab and Valse brillante in Eb (lost)
Mephistopheles Lied vom Floh, Beethoven arrangement
1910 (28)
Chanson de Méphistophéles, Mussorgsky arrangement
L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird), ballet
Two Poems of Verlaine, for voice and piano
1911 (29)
Petrushka, ballet
Two Poems of Balmont, for high voice and piano
1911-12 (29-30)
Zvezdoliki, for male chorus and orchestra
1913 (31)
Three Japanese lyrics
Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring), ballet
Orchestration (with Ravel)
of parts of Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition
Trois petites chansons for voice and piano
1914 (32)
Three Pieces for string quartet (revised 1918)
Pribaoutki, for voice and eight instruments
Valse des fleurs, for two pianos
1914-15 (32-3)
Three Easy Pieces for piano duet
1914-23 (32-41)
Les Noces, dance scenes (three versions)
1915-17 (32-5)
Podblyudnya (Saucers), for female voices a capella
1915 (33)
Souvenir d'une Marche Boche, for piano
1915-16 (33-4)
Berceuses du chat for voice and three clarinets
1915-17 (33-5)
Trois histoires pour enfants, for voice and piano
1916 (34)
Renard, a burlesque
1916-17 (34-5)
Valse pour les enfants, for piano
1917 (35)
Five Easy Pieces for piano duet
Chant du rossignol, symphonic poem
Chant des bateliers du Volga, arrangement for wind and percussion
Canons for two horns (lost)
Etude for pianola
Berceuse for voice and piano
1918 (36)
L'histoire du soldat, for speakers, dancer, and ensemble
Ragtime, for eleven instruments
Three Pieces for clarinet solo
Lied ohne Name, for two bassoons
1918-19 (36-7)
Four Russian Songs for voice and piano
1919 (37)
La Marseillaise, arranged for solo violin
Piano-Rag-Music, for piano
1920 (38)
Pulcinella, ballet with songs
Concertino for string quartet
Symphonies for wind instruments
1921 (39)
Les cinq doigts, for piano
Orchestration of two pieces from Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty
Suite No 2 for chamber orchestra
1922 (40)
Mavra, opera bouffe
1923 (41)
Octet for wind instruments
1924 (42)
Concerto for piano and wind instruments
Piano Sonata
Serenade in A for piano
1925 (43)
Suite No 1 for small orchestra
1926 (44)
Otche Nash' (Pater Noster), for chorus a cappella
1926-7 (44-5)
Oedipus Rex, opera-oratorio
1928 (46)
Apollon musagete, ballet for string orchestra
Le baiser de la fée, ballet
1929 (47)
Quatre Etudes for orchestra
Capriccio for piano and orchestra
1930 (48)
Symphony of Psalms, for chorus and orchestra
1931 (49)
Violin Concerto
1932 (50)
Duo Concertante for violin and piano
Suite Italienne, from Pulcinella
Simbol' Vyeri fCredo), for chorus a cappella
1933-4 (51-2)
Perséphone, melodrama
1934 (52)
Bogoroditse D'vo (Ave Maria), for chorus a cappella
Divertimento from Le baiser de la fée
1935 (53)
Concerto for two solo pianos
1936 (54)
Jeu de cartes, ballet
1936-53 (56-71)
Praeludium, for jazz ensemble
1937 (55)
Petit Ramusianum Harmonique, for unaccompanied voices (in horn mage d C.-F. Ramuz, Lausanne, 1938)
1938 (56)
Dumbarton Oaks, Concerto in Eb, for chamber orchestra
1940 (56)
Symphony in C
Tango for piano
1941 (59)
Orchestration of 'The Star-spangled Banner'
Arrangement of Tchaikovsky's Bluebird pas de deux
1942 (60)
Danses concertantes for chamber orchestra
Circus Polka, for orchestra
Four Norwegian Moods, for orchestra
1943 (61)
Ode: Elegiacal Chant, for orchestra
1944 (62)
Babel, cantata
Sonata for two pianos
Scherzo a la Russe, for jazz ensemble
Scenes de ballet, for orchestra
Elegy for unaccompanied viola
1945 (63)
Symphony in three movements
Ebony Concerto, for clarinet and jazz ensemble
1946 (64)
Concerto in D for string orchestra
1947 (65)
Petit Canon pour la fete de Nadia Boulanger, for two voices
Orpheus, ballet
1948 (66)
Mass for mixed chorus and double wind quintet
1948-51 (66-9)
The Rake's Progress, opera
1952 (70)
Cantata
Concertino for twelve instruments
1953 (71)
Septet
Three Songs from William Shakespeare, for mezzo and piano 1
954 (72)
In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, for voice, trombones and string quartet
Four Songs for voice, flute, harp and guitar
Two Poems of Balmont (orchestral version)
1955 (73)
Greeting Prelude, for orchestra
Canticum Sacrum ad Honorem Sancti Marci Nominis
1956 (74)
Chorale Variations on Vom Himmel hoch for chorus and orchestra
1957 (75)
Agon, ballet
1958 (76)
Threni: id est Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae, for soloists, chorus and orchestra
1959 (77)
Movements for piano and orchestra
Epitaphium, for flute, clarinet and harp
Tres sacrae cantiones, completion of Gesualdo
Double Canon for string quartet
1960 (78)
Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD Annum, for orchestra
1961 (79)
A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer, cantata
1962 (80)
Anthem 'The Dove descending breaks the air'
Eight Instrumental Miniatures for fifteen players
The Flood, musical play
1963 (81)
Abraham and Isaac, for baritone and chamber orchestra
Orchestration of Sibelius's Canzonetta
1964 (82)
Elegy for JFK, for voice and three clarinets
Fanfare for a New Theatre, for two trumpets
Variations for Orchestra
1965 (83)
Introitus, for male chorus and ensemble
Canon for concert introduction or encore
1966 (84)
Requiem Canticles for soli, chorus and orchestra
The Owl and the Pussy-cat, for voice and piano 1
968 (85)
Two Sacred Songs arranged from Hugo Wolf
1969 (86)
Instrumentation of four Preludes and Fugues from J. S. Bach's Das wohltemperirte Klavier