Error processing SSI file

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

Return to Index