What I’m Blogging

It’s the birthday of Igor Stravinsky, born in Oranienbaum, a suburb of St. Petersburg, Russia (1882). His first major success as a composer was a ballet based on a Russian folk tale called “The Firebird” (1909). It was wildly popular, and he traveled all over Europe to conduct it. Then, one night, he got an idea for a ballet about a pagan ritual in which a virgin would be sacrificed to the gods of spring by dancing herself to death. Stravinsky composed the piece on a piano in a rented cottage, and a boy working outside his window kept shouting up at him that the chords were all wrong. When Stravinsky played part of the piece for director of the theater where it would be performed, the director asked, “How much longer will it go on like that?” Stravinsky replied, “To the end, my dear.” He titled the piece “The Rite of Spring.”

…People who were enjoying the music attacked those who were booing…

It had its opening night in 1913 in Paris. The audience sat quietly through the first several minutes of the piece, but when the music suddenly turned harsh and dissonant, people in the audience began to shout at the stage. Fights broke out between the audience members. People who were enjoying the music attacked those who were booing. People spat in each other’s faces. Men exchanged cards in order to fight duels the next day. The police were called. Stravinsky was so upset by the response that he left his seat in disgust. But the performance kept on, despite the disturbance. The composition lasted only thirty-three minutes, but it made Stravinsky was one of the most famous composers in the world.

Stravinsky went on to write many more pieces of music. He never waited for inspiration to compose. He said he kept banker’s hours at his worktable. After his early success, he began to compose colder, more intellectual music, though he also once wrote a polka for a dancing elephant in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Igor Stravinsky said, “My music is best understood by children and animals.”