Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorovich 1882-1971
Russian-born US composer

Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, near St Petersburg, the son of a musician at the Imperial Opera. He studied law but became increasingly interested in musical composition, which he studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, whose influence can be heard in the early Symphony in E flat (1907). Sergei Diaghilev heard Stravinsky's music and invited him to write a ballet on the legend of The Firebird (1910); his enchanting music was an instant success. A second ballet, Petrushka (1911), consolidated his international reputation, as did The Rite of Spring (1913), although there was a riot at its premi�re.

The Hans Andersen opera, The Nightingale (1914), was followed by the wartime 'shoe-string' entertainments, Renard (1917) and The Soldier's Tale (1918), which aptly illustrate Stravinsky's adaptability. Essentially an experimenter, he then plunged headlong into neoclassicism. The ballets Pulcinella (1920), based on music by Giovanni Pergolesi, Apollo Musagetes (1928), The Card Game (1937), Orpheus (1948) and the austere Agon (1957), using Schoenberg's twelve-note system, exemplify this trend, as do the opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex (1927), based on a Jean Cocteau version and translated into Latin for greater dignity, and the magnificent choral Symphony of Psalms (1930) 'composed to the glory of God'.

Stravinsky settled in France in 1934 and finally in the USA, as an American citizen, in 1945. Other characteristic and outstanding works include the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, dedicated to Claude Debussy (1921); the Symphony in C major (1940); the opera The Rake's Progress (1951) for which W H Auden helped to write the libretto; and the serial-music In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), for voice, string quartet and four trombones, The Flood (1962), a musical play, Elegy for J.F.K. (1964), for voice and clarinets, Variations (1965) for orchestra in memory of Aldous Huxley, and Requiem Canticles (1966), for voice and orchestra.

He was Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard in 1939, and in 1954 was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Bibliography: Stravinsky's autobiography, up to 1936, is Chronicles of My Life. His extensive discussions with the musician Robert Craft are recorded in R Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (1959), and his letters in Selected Correspondence (1982-85). See also P Griffiths, Stravinsky (1992); R Craft, Stravinsky (1986); F Routh, Stravinsky (1975).