SUITE FROM THE FIREBIRD (1919 VERSION) COMPOSED FROM 1909-10

IGOR STRAVINSKY BORN IN LOMONOSOV, RUSSIA, JUNE 17, 1882 DIED IN NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 6, 1971

When the father of Igor Stravinsky died in 1902, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov—Russia’s most important living composer and a friend of the Stravinsky family—became for the 20-year-old musician not just an artistic mentor but a sort of father-figure as well. Stravinsky’s early works are best viewed in this light, for the majority of them were written for, or composed in emulation of, this great master. As the young composer’s most important composition teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov played a seminal role in the foundation of Stravinsky’s approach to melody and instrumental color. In 1907 Stravinsky dedicated his Op. 1, the Symphony in E-flat major, to his teacher, and the normally taciturn Rimsky-Korsakov demonstrated his approval by engaging a private performance of this exuberant work with the St. Petersburg court orchestra. Emboldened by his success, shortly afterward Stravinsky presented for his teacher’s approval a piece for large orchestra, the Scherzo fantastique.

A LOVE OF RUSSIAN FOLKLORE Stravinsky left Russia not long after, settling first in Paris and then the United States and finally becoming for all practical purposes a citizen of the world. Yet something of the spirit and character of his native Russia remained with him throughout his long and fruitful life. This spirit, which consisted partly of a deep knowledge of Russian folklore, partly of a large repertoire of folk tunes of which he made liberal use in his scores, and partly of his sheer adventurousness, permeated his music and stamped it with a unique character that allows us to identify blind a work by Stravinsky almost immediately. Young Stravinsky’s veneration of Russian folklore was manifested early on, in the loving care with which he set to music the fairy-tale of the Firebird in 1909. Written on commission from the great dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet Firebird was composed for the first Parisian season of the Ballets Russes. Its enormous success at the Paris Opéra premiere in June 1910 not only established Diaghilev as the leader of Paris’ avant-garde, it proclaimed Stravinsky as the most promising of Europe’s young generation of composers. Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, both composed for Diaghilev, followed in rapid succession, and later Les Noces, Marva, and Apollon musagète. The first three ballets made his name. Igor Stravinsky, aged 27, had arrived. In the early 1960s, Stravinsky noted that the Firebird quickly became a “mainstay” of his life as a conductor: “I made my conducting debut with it (the complete ballet) in 1915 at a Red Cross benefit in Paris, and since then I have conducted it nearly a thousand times, though ten thousand would not erase the memory of the terror I suffered that first time.”

A CLOSER LOOK The tale of the Firebird is simple, even elemental. An enchanted bird, the Firebird, guides Crown Prince Ivan, who is lost in the woods, to the castle of Kastcheï the Deathless. The evil Kastcheï, who holds 13 princesses captive, would ordinarily turn Ivan to stone, as he has all the other knights who have attempted to free the princesses. But Ivan is more valiant; and he has a magic bird on his side, too, which helps a great deal. Aided by the Firebird, who tells him the secret of Kastcheï’s immorality—that his soul is in the form of an egg kept in a casket, which is promptly crushed—the Prince defeats the evil forces, the magic castle vanishes with a “poof,” all the knights come back to life to comfort the freed princesses, and Ivan makes away with the most beautiful princess, of course, who becomes his bride as the dark woods fill with light and all dance to the familiar finale- music. After the ballet’s premiere, Stravinsky prepared a five-movement concert suite from Firebird (1911); in 1919 he revised this suite, omitting two movements and adding the “Berceuse” and Finale. In 1945 he made a third suite, containing all of the above elements.

—Paul J. Horsley/Christopher H. Gibbs

Program note © 2006. All rights reserved. Program note may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association.