Английский язык. 11 класс (О. В. Афанасьева и др.)
Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorovich
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| 11. Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorovich (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971)
was a Russian composer, considered by many both in the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor. Stravinsky’s compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and performed by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets): The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911/revised in 1947), and The Rite of Spring (1913). The Rite transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure; to this day this ballet continues to dazzle and overwhelm audiences. After this first Russian phase he turned to neoclassicism in the 1920s. The works from this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue, symphony). In the 1950s he adopted serial procedures, using the new techniques over the final twenty years of his life to write works that were briefer and of greater rhythmic and harmonic complexity than his earlier music. He also published a number of books throughout his career. In his 1936 autobiography, Chronicle of My Life, Stravinsky included his infamous statement that “music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all.” Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum (renamed Lomonosov in 1948), Russia and brought up in St. Petersburg. His childhood, he recalled in his autobiography, was troublesome: “I never came across anyone who had any real affection for me.” His father, Fyodor Stravinsky, was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, and the young Stravinsky began piano lessons and later studied music theory and attempted some composition. In 1890, Stravinsky saw a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre; the performance, his first exposure to an orchestra, mesmerised him. Despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to become a lawyer. Stravinsky enrolled to study law at the University of St. Petersburg in 1901, but received only a half-course diploma, in April 1906. Thereafter, he concentrated on music. On the advice of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov he decided not to enter the St. Petersburg Conservatoire; instead, in 1905, he began to take private tutelage from Rimsky-Korsakov, who became like a second father to him. In 1909, his Fireworks was performed in St. Petersburg, where it was heard by Sergei Diaghilev, the director of the Ballets Russes in Paris. Stravinsky travelled to Paris in 1910 to attend the premiere of The Firebird. His family soon joined him, and decided to remain in the West for a time. He moved to Switzerland, where he lived until 1920, after which he moved to France. When World War II broke out in September, he set out for the United States. At first Stravinsky took up residence in Hollywood, but he moved to New York in 1969. He continued to live in the United States until his death in 1971. Stravinsky had adapted to life in France, but moving to America at the age of 58 was not so easy. Nevertheless, he was drawn to the growing cultural life of Los Angeles, especially during World War II, when so many writers, musicians, composers, and conductors settled in the area. In 1962, Stravinsky accepted an invitation to return to St. Petersburg (Leningrad) for a series of concerts. He spent more than two hours speaking with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who urged him to return to the Soviet Union. Despite the invitation, Stravinsky remained settled in the West. He died at the age of 88 in New York City and was buried in Venice on the cemetery island of San Michele, close to the tomb of Diaghilev. |