Thursday 21 & Sunday 24 September Igor Stravinsky in Profile 1882–1971 / profile by Paul Griffiths LSO SEASON CONCERT hird in a family of four sons, Before that was completed, a ballet based In 1939, soon after the deaths of his wife STRAVINSKY INTRODUCTION from Paul Griffiths he had a comfortable upbringing in on 18th-century music, Pulcinella (1919–20), and mother, he sailed to New York with St Petersburg, where his father opened the door to a whole neoclassical period, Vera, whom he married, and with whom he Stravinsky The Firebird (original ballet) Writing back to a Russian friend in 1912, was a Principal Bass at the Mariinsky Theatre. which was to last three decades and more. settled in Los Angeles. Following his opera Interval – 20 minutes as he worked in Switzerland on The Rite In 1902 he started lessons with Rimsky- He also began spending much of his time The Rake’s Progress (1947–51) he began to Stravinsky Petrushka (1947 version) of Spring, Stravinsky remarked: ‘It is as Korsakov, but he was a slow developer, in Paris and on tour with his mistress Vera interest himself in Schoenberg and Webern, Interval – 20 minutes if twenty and not two years had passed and hardly a safe bet when Diaghilev Sudeikina, while his wife, mother and children and within three years had worked out a Stravinsky The Rite of Spring since The Firebird was composed’. commissioned The Firebird. The success lived elsewhere in France. Up to the end of new serial style. Sacred works became more STRA This evening we have the rare opportunity of that work encouraged him to remain the 1920s, his big works were nearly all for and more important, to end with Requiem Sir Simon Rattle conductor to relive those packed and extraordinary in western Europe, writing scores almost the theatre (including the nine he wrote for Canticles (1965–66), which was performed two years in two hours, following the annually for Diaghilev. The October Diaghilev). By contrast, large-scale abstract at his funeral, in Venice. • LSO Discovery is delighted to be a beneficiary composer as he moves from fairytale in Revolution of 1917 sealed him off from his works began to dominate his output after of this year’s Lord Mayor’s Appeal. Following The Firebird through street theatre in homeland; his response was to create a rural 1930, including three symphonies, of which Sunday’s performance there will be a collection Petrushka to prehistoric sacrifice in Russia of the mind, in such works as the the first, Symphony of Psalms (1930), marks in aid of the appeal – please give generously. Visit thelordmayorsappeal.org to find out more. The Rite of Spring – all within the peasant-wedding ballet Les Noces (1914-23). also his reawakened religious observance. VIN boundaries of Russia, which, even though Thursday 21 September broadcast live on he spent most of his adult life abroad, BBC Radio 3 in spirit he never left. FAMOUS STRAVINSKY QUOTES These are all ballet scores, made for spectacle – the spectacle, in Petrushka, I haven’t understood a bar of music The more constraints one imposes, Sunday 24 September live streamed on the of a puppet brought to life by Vaslav in my life, but I have felt it. the more one frees one. SKY LSO’s YouTube channel and on classicfm.com Nijinsky, the outstanding male dancer of his time (or perhaps any) and the eventual Art is the opposite of chaos. I never understood the need for a choreographer of The Rite. Stravinsky’s Art is organised chaos. ‘live’ audience. My music, because theatre, however, was fundamentally the of its extreme quietude, would be Sunday 24 September generously orchestra, with its instruments and groups Lesser artists borrow, happiest with a dead one. supported by Reignwood responding to one another, its capacity to great artists steal. create whole worlds of rhythm and colour. One has a nose. The nose scents Listen. Hold still. The mind will dance. • Too many pieces of music and it chooses. An artist is simply Thursday’s concert ends approx 9.45pm finish too long after the end. a kind of pig snouting truffles. Sunday’s concert ends approx 8.45pm 74 Composer Profile 75 Thursday 21 & Sunday 24 September Igor Stravinsky in Profile 1882–1971 / profile by Paul Griffiths LSO SEASON CONCERT hird in a family of four sons, Before that was completed, a ballet based In 1939, soon after the deaths of his wife STRAVINSKY INTRODUCTION from Paul Griffiths he had a comfortable upbringing in on 18th-century music, Pulcinella (1919–20), and mother, he sailed to New York with St Petersburg, where his father opened the door to a whole neoclassical period, Vera, whom he married, and with whom he Stravinsky The Firebird (original ballet) Writing back to a Russian friend in 1912, was a Principal Bass at the Mariinsky Theatre. which was to last three decades and more. settled in Los Angeles. Following his opera Interval – 20 minutes as he worked in Switzerland on The Rite In 1902 he started lessons with Rimsky- He also began spending much of his time The Rake’s Progress (1947–51) he began to Stravinsky Petrushka (1947 version) of Spring, Stravinsky remarked: ‘It is as Korsakov, but he was a slow developer, in Paris and on tour with his mistress Vera interest himself in Schoenberg and Webern, Interval – 20 minutes if twenty and not two years had passed and hardly a safe bet when Diaghilev Sudeikina, while his wife, mother and children and within three years had worked out a Stravinsky The Rite of Spring since The Firebird was composed’. commissioned The Firebird. The success lived elsewhere in France. Up to the end of new serial style. Sacred works became more STRA This evening we have the rare opportunity of that work encouraged him to remain the 1920s, his big works were nearly all for and more important, to end with Requiem Sir Simon Rattle conductor to relive those packed and extraordinary in western Europe, writing scores almost the theatre (including the nine he wrote for Canticles (1965–66), which was performed two years in two hours, following the annually for Diaghilev. The October Diaghilev). By contrast, large-scale abstract at his funeral, in Venice. • LSO Discovery is delighted to be a beneficiary composer as he moves from fairytale in Revolution of 1917 sealed him off from his works began to dominate his output after of this year’s Lord Mayor’s Appeal. Following The Firebird through street theatre in homeland; his response was to create a rural 1930, including three symphonies, of which Sunday’s performance there will be a collection Petrushka to prehistoric sacrifice in Russia of the mind, in such works as the the first, Symphony of Psalms (1930), marks in aid of the appeal – please give generously. Visit thelordmayorsappeal.org to find out more. The Rite of Spring – all within the peasant-wedding ballet Les Noces (1914-23). also his reawakened religious observance. VIN boundaries of Russia, which, even though Thursday 21 September broadcast live on he spent most of his adult life abroad, BBC Radio 3 in spirit he never left. FAMOUS STRAVINSKY QUOTES These are all ballet scores, made for spectacle – the spectacle, in Petrushka, I haven’t understood a bar of music The more constraints one imposes, Sunday 24 September live streamed on the of a puppet brought to life by Vaslav in my life, but I have felt it. the more one frees one. SKY LSO’s YouTube channel and on classicfm.com Nijinsky, the outstanding male dancer of his time (or perhaps any) and the eventual Art is the opposite of chaos. I never understood the need for a choreographer of The Rite. Stravinsky’s Art is organised chaos. ‘live’ audience. My music, because theatre, however, was fundamentally the of its extreme quietude, would be Sunday 24 September generously orchestra, with its instruments and groups Lesser artists borrow, happiest with a dead one. supported by Reignwood responding to one another, its capacity to great artists steal. create whole worlds of rhythm and colour. One has a nose. The nose scents Listen. Hold still. The mind will dance. • Too many pieces of music and it chooses. An artist is simply Thursday’s concert ends approx 9.45pm finish too long after the end. a kind of pig snouting truffles. Sunday’s concert ends approx 8.45pm 74 Composer Profile 75 Igor Stravinsky The Firebird 1909–10 / note by Paul Griffiths 1 Introduction ‘Well,’ said Debussy to the his musical clothes, and moving with a and Tamara Karsavina as the Firebird. or round dance: like the prince, they prove in jubilation, and time slows into a swinging young composer who thus quickened, edgier pulse, is Stravinsky. But Debussy was by no means the only their Russian blood in their music, which is pattern to create the first of the composer’s First Tableau observer to notice, besides the wonder based on traditional dances and folksongs, concluding apotheoses – a musical type 2 The Enchanted Garden of Kashchei burst into Paris and into history, It might, though, never have happened. onstage, the music. Soon it leapt out of very much in the tradition of Rimsky- that would echo through his output and 3 Appearance of the Firebird, pursued by Prince Ivan ‘you have to start somewhere.’ The impresario Serge Diaghilev • had his the theatre pit. Before the year was out Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. still be there 55 years later at the end of 4 Dance of the Firebird own reasons for wanting to present his Stravinsky had created a concert suite, his Requiem Canticles.