Stravinsky: The Rite Of Spring / Card Game

Description

Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)The Rite of Spring / Le sacre du printempsCard Game / Jeu de cartes (Ballet in Three Deals)Concerto in D MajorIgor Stravinsky was the son of a distinguished bass soloist at the MariinskyTheatre in St. Petersburg, creator of important roles in new operas byTchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. He was born, the third of four sons, atOranienbaum on the Gulf of Finland in the summer of 1882. In childhood hisability in music did not seem exceptional, but he was able to study musicprivately with Rimsky- Korsakov, who became a particularly important influenceafter the death of the composer's imperious father in 1902. He completed adegree in law in 1905, married in the following year and increasingly devotedhimself to music. His first significant success came when the impresarioDyagilev, a distant relative on his mother's side of the family, commissionedfrom him the ballet The Firebird, first performed in Paris in 1910. Thiswas followed by the very Russian Petrushka in 1911 for the Dyagilev BalletsRusses, with which he was now closely associated, leading in 1913 to thenotorious first performance of The Rite of Spring, first staged, like thepreceding ballets, in Paris. Although collaboration with Dyagilev was limitedduring the war, when Stravinsky lived principally in Switzerland, it was resumedwith the ballet PulcineIla, based on music attributed to Pergolesi, andmarking Stravinsky's association with neo-classicism. The end of the associationwith Dyagilev was marked by what the impresario considered a macabre present,the Cocteau collaboration Oedipus Rex.Stravinsky has been compared to his near contemporary Picasso, the painterwho provided decor for PulcineIla and who through a long career was toshow mastery of a number of contrasting styles. Stravinsky's earlier music wasessentially Russian in inspiration, followed by a style of composition derivedlargely from the 18th century, interspersed with musical excursions in otherdirections. His so-called neo-classicism coincided with the beginning of acareer that was now international. The initial enthusiasm for the Russianrevolution of 1917 that had led even Dyagilev to replace crown and sceptre in TheFirebird with a red flag, was soon succeeded by distaste for the new regimeand the decision not to return to Russia.In 1939, with war imminent in Europe, Stravinsky moved to the United States,where he had already enjoyed considerable success. The death of his first wifeallowed him to marry a woman with whom he had enjoyed a long earlier associationand the couple settled in Hollywood, where the climate seemed congenial. Incomefrom his compositions was at last safeguarded by his association with Boosey andHawkes in 1945, the year of his naturalisation as an American citizen. The year1951 saw the completion and first performance of the English opera The Rake'sProgress, based on Hogarth engravings with a libretto by W. H. Auden andChester Kallman, a work that came at the final height of the c