Although interested in music from an early age, Stravinsky enrolled at St. Petersburg University to
study law, which was considered a more reliable career path – ironically, even by his father, who
enjoyed a successful career as a bass-baritone after studying law himself. While at St.
Petersburg, Stravinsky befriended the youngest son of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russia’s most
widely celebrated living composer at the turn of the twentieth century and also its most respected
teacher. Through his relationship with the son, Stravinsky came to know the great composer, who
eventually agreed to take on the young upstart as a student, outside of the potentially intimidating
setting of the Conservatory. From Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky learned traditional harmony and
form, as well as Rimsky-Korsakov’s command of orchestration; his earliest orchestral works,
including a substantial symphony, reveal the clear influence of his teacher.
Stravinsky’s progress as a composer reached a crossroads when Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908.
Already growing dissatisfied with the conservative voice he had inherited from his teacher, he had
explored more progressive approaches to tonality and tried to move away from the publicly held
romantic notion that a work of art should reveal something of the soul of its creator. But these
tendencies had not met with great favor from either Rimsky-Korsakov or newspaper critics, and it
was becoming difficult for Stravinsky to follow his inner voice without some positive reinforcement.
The break that changed the young composer’s life came from the ballet impresario Serge
Diaghilev. Diaghilev ran the Ballet Russes in Paris and had come to know of Stravinsky’s music
through some of his early compositions, even hiring him for a couple of minor projects. Critical
reaction to the Ballet’s 1909 season convinced Diaghilev that he needed to collaborate with a
composer whose music would be heard as fresh, modern, and exotic. After determining that he
would commission a new ballet to the opulent Russian fairly tale of “The Firebird,” he made some
inquiries and settled on Stravinsky as the composer. Stravinsky’s music combined folk elements
with cutting-edge harmonic and rhythmic elements, as well as his mastery of traditional Russian
orchestration with trends in French impressionistic writing. In spite of some rough moments in the
early rehearsals, the premiere in June 1910 was an enormous success, and Stravinsky became
an overnight celebrity. Although The Firebird ends up as a relatively conservative piece overall,
Stravinsky made dramatic leaps forward with his next two Diaghilev collaborations, Petrouchka
and The Rite of Spring, with The Rite universally identified as the pivotal work in all of twentieth-
century music.
The suite that Stravinsky prepared in 1919 features about half of the full ballet’s 45 minutes of
music and also revises the orchestration. The central character of the ballet is the young prince
Ivan Tsarevich, who in the Introduction is wandering through the garden of the evil King Kastcheï.
Ivan is in pursuit of the mystical firebird and ends the bird’s dance by catching her, but after
securing one of her magic feathers, Ivan sets the bird free. Next a group of princesses enter the
garden, but they find themselves trapped there due to one of Kastcheï’s evil spells. Kastcheï’s
monsters are closing in on Ivan and threatening to capture him, but he remembers his magic
feather and waves it, summoning the firebird herself (in music not included in this suite). The
firebird casts a spell against Kastcheï and his subjects, sending them into the dizzying Infernal
Dance, after which they collapse exhausted. They are lulled into a deep sleep in the Berceuse
and Kastcheï is destroyed, leading to the glorious Finale in which all are returned to freedom.
