Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский
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Igor Stravinsky’s 1913 ballet The Rite of Spring caused a riot and changed classical music forever. Over his career, he composed pioneering works in styles ranging from Russian folk to neoclassicism and serialism. He received numerous awards, including multiple Grammys and the Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Stravinsky died in 1971 at age 88.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Igor Stravinsky — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Igor Stravinsky by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Igor Stravinsky — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Fyodor Stravinsky, a singer at the opera, gave his son early musical exposure. Born on June 17, 1882 in Oranienbaum, Igor Stravinsky briefly studied law at Saint Petersburg State University before becoming a private student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. That training shaped his early Russian-influenced compositions.
Stravinsky’s breakthrough came with the 1910 ballet The Firebird, followed by Petrushka in 1911. The 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring in Paris caused a riot, cementing his reputation as a modernist innovator. He worked closely with impresario Sergei Diaghilev on these ballets.
In the 1920s, Stravinsky adopted a neoclassical style with works like Pulcinella and the Symphony of Psalms. Later, in the 1950s, he embraced 12-tone serialism, composing pieces such as Agon. He recorded many of his works with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in the 1960s.
Stravinsky received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for radio work.
Stravinsky married Katerina Nossenko in 1906; they had two children, Soulima and Théodore. After her death in 1939, he married Vera Stravinsky in 1940. He became a French citizen in 1934 and a U.S. citizen in 1946, settling in Los Angeles and later New York.
He resided at the Ansonia Hotel in Manhattan and lived near Arnold Schoenberg in Los Angeles, though they avoided each other.
The 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring broke from Romanticism with dissonant rhythms, influencing generations of composers. Stravinsky received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1987 and was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame in 2004.
His radical works made him a leading figure in modernist music, among the most important composers of the 20th century.
Browse the complete filmography of Igor Stravinsky — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Igor Stravinsky — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Igor Stravinsky's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
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A wall of memorable lines from Igor Stravinsky — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
I Have Learned Throughout My Life as a Composer Chiefly Through My Mistakes and Pursuits of False Assumptions, Not My Exposure to Founts of Wisdom and Knowledge.
Why Is It That Whenever I Hear a Piece of Music I Don’t Like, It’s Always by Villa Lobos?
My Music Is Best Understood by Children and Animals.
To Listen Is an Effort and Just to Hear Is No Merit. a Duck Hears Also.
The Trouble with Music Appreciation in General Is That People Are Taught to Have Too Much Respect for Music. They Should Be Taught to Love It Instead.
Lesser Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal.
My Childhood Was a Period of Waiting for the Moment When I Could Send Everyone and Everything Connected with It to Hell.
Music Praises God. Music Is Well or Better Able to Praise Him Than the Building of the Church and All Its Decoration. It Is the Church’s Greatest Ornament.
I Know That the Twelve Notes in Each Octave and the Variety of Rhythm Offer Me Opportunities That All of Human Genius Will Never Exhaust.
Too Many Pieces of Music Finish Too Long After the End.
My Music Is Cheap. It’s My Name That’s Expensive.
Little-known facts about Igor Stravinsky — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Many regard Stravinsky as the greatest composer of the 20th century, largely for his ballet The Rite of Spring. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for radio work, located at 6340 Hollywood Blvd., making him the only classical composer with a star.
He is generally considered the father of modern classical music; a riot ensued at the 1913 premiere of his ballet Le Sacre du Printemps.
Stravinsky recorded a number of his works with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in the 1960s, all of which he conducted.
He settled in the United States in 1939 after having become a French citizen in 1934, and became a U.S. citizen in 1946.
Early in his career, Stravinsky opposed 12-tone writing, or serialism, but turned to that style of composition in the 1950s.
His 1913 ballet Le Sacre du Printemps The Rite of Spring caused the greatest single revolution in classical music since Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony in the early 1800s. It was a complete break from Romanticism with its strange and dissonant rhythms. It was a fiasco at its premiere but began to win wide acceptance as a concert piece just a year later.
Stravinsky was the only living composer whose music was featured in the original Fantasia 1940. Paul Dukas, composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, had died five years earlier.
He was the father of Théodore Stravinsky.
He was a mentor of Ellis B. Kohs.
He was appointed Commander of the Ancient, Most Noble and Enlightened Military Order of Saint James of the Sword, of the Scientific, Literary and Artistic Merit of Portugal on 25 July 1966.
Walt Disney offered Stravinsky $5,000 to use music from The Rite of Spring in Fantasia 1940. When the composer balked at the sum, Disney informed him that the work was public domain in the US. As a recent arrival from war-torn Europe, Stravinsky grudgingly took the money. He would live in Los Angeles for 29 years but never score a Hollywood feature film.
In 1987 he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement, and he was posthumously inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame in 2004.
He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and a central figure in modernist music.
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French from 1934 and American from 1945 citizenship.
In the 1940s, Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schönberg lived as virtual neighbors on the Westside of Los Angeles. They studiously avoided each other.
He resided at the Ansonia Hotel, 2109 Broadway, in Manhattan, New York.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Igor Stravinsky.
Celebrities similar to Igor Stravinsky — same craft, ranked by reach.
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