Stravinsky grew up in Saint Petersburg in an strict family environment. As a child, he excelled at the piano, showing a particular talent for improvising. His father, a renowned singer, dismissed his son’s early attempts at composing and did not encourage Igor to pursue a career in music, enrolling him instead in law school in 1901. However, the following year, the death of his father and a meeting with Rimski-Korsakov proved to be decisive events for the young composer. Rimski-Korsakov went on to become Stravinsky’s composition professor until his death in 1908, notably bestowing upon Stravinsky a rigorous and inventive approach to orchestration. In 1909, Stravinsky’s work Feux d’artifice was premiered in the presence of Diaghilev. It was Diaghilev, the organiser of concerts of Russian music and founder and impresario of the famous Ballets Russes (which immediately established itself as a major authority on matters of musical taste during this crucial period in 20th century music history), who established the career of the young Stravinsky, commissioning the ballet The Firebird and overseeing its premiere in Paris in 1910, an event which made a celebrity of Stravinsky virtually overnight. The ballets Petrushka and The Rite of Spring followed; the latter, with Nijinski’s revolutionary choreography, quickly convinced Parisians (despite the uproar that marred its first performance) of Stravinsky’s singular talent. Debussy, notably, immediately recognised it as a work of genius. Moreover, The Rite of Spring marked the birth of “musical primitivism,” an apt musical response to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907); following its premiere, Picasso and Stravinsky became close friends. Nonetheless, the scandal that overshadowed the work’s premiere had a profound affect on Stravinsky, leaving the composer confined to bed with a fever for six weeks.

Following the declaration of war in 1914, borders in Europe were closed. Stravinsky, who had intended to return to Russia, fled to Switzerland, where he encountered Ramuz, a meeting which gave rise to the composition of Renard [The Fox] and The Soldier’s Tale. As resources were limited during the war, modernist composers such as Stravinsky were compelled to write works which were more modest in scale, such as Les Noces.

In 1920, Stravinsky moved to Paris. The Russian Revolution had deprived his family of its wealth (Stravinsky would only return to his native Russia briefly in 1962), obliging the composer to seek employment as a pianist and conductor. His Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments is a testament to Stravinsky’s prosaic day-to-day life during this period. His acquaintance with Cocteau and a tendency among artists at the time to valorise “French levity” in their work encouraged Stravinsky to develop a new, neoclassical style, which first materialised in his ballet Pulcinella. In 1926, a spiritual awakening compelled the composer to rejoin the orthodox church. This gave rise to the composition of several sacred choral works, in which the sombre subject matter is somewhat at odds with the playfulness that characterises his music from this period.

In 1939, Stravinsky immigrated to the United States, where he continued to develop his neoclassical style, culminating in the composition of his only opera, The Rake’s Progress. However, a meeting with conductor Robert Craft in 1948 would prove to be the catalyst for a second abrupt shift in style. Craft convinced Stravinsky that it was no longer reasonable for the composer of The Rite of Spring, in the middle of the 20th century, to cling to neoclassicism while largely ignoring serialism. In subsequent works, Stravinsky adopted an idiomatic form of serialism which was lively, mischievous, but sometimes also restrained in style — harking back to the economy of means and the asceticism of Webern — while at the same time seeking a renewed sense of mysticism.

His late music, marked by a preoccupation with themes of death, largely comprises sombre, religiously-inspired works, such as Requiem Canticles, or mournful homages to recently deceased friends or contemporaries, e.g., “In memoriam” T.S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley.

A truly multi-faceted composer, Stravinsky nonetheless retained his unique identity throughout his various stylistic periods. He successfully adapted to the growing “industry of culture,” and until his death, was playing an active role in the recording of the majority of his works, thereby ensuring the solidity and permanence of his musical legacy. Following his death in April 1971, he was buried in Venice next to Diaghilev, who had played such a pivotal role in the composer’s destiny.