Considered one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century, Igor Fyodorovich
Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia on June 17, 1882. His father, Fyodor Stravinsky,
was the principal bass singer at the Kiev opera house and the Mariinsky Theatre in St.
Petersburg. His mother, Anna Kholodovsky Stravinsky, was an amateur singer and pianist. As a
youngster, Stravinsky studied piano, music theory, and tried his hand at composing. Though he
came from a musical family and wanted to study music, Igor attended the University of Saint
Petersburg to study law at the behest of his parents. After his father’s death in 1902, Stravinsky
began studying music privately with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the leading Russian composer at
the time. During his years of study with Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky composed several works
indexed as Opus 1. Between the years 1890 – 1914, he spent his summers in Ustilug, where he
met his first cousin, Katherine “Katya” Gavrylivna Nosenko, whom he married on January 23,
1906 and had four children with. In 1907, Igor built a house of his own design in Ustilug that he
referred to as, “My Heavenly Place.” It was here that Stravinsky composed seventeen of his
early works such as Feu d’artifice, The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring. Today, this
house is a public museum that displays many of Stravinsky’s documents and photographs.
In 1909 his orchestral work Feu d’artifice (Fireworks), was performed in Saint Petersburg. In
attendance at the concert was Serge Diaghilev, impresario of Ballets Russes. Impressed with
Fireworks, he commissioned Stravinsky to write some orchestrations that lead to him composing
the ballet score, The Firebird which premiered June 25, 1910 in Paris.
Stravinsky, along with his family, spent the next four years living in Switzerland during the
winter months and Ustilug in the summers. During this time, he composed the very successful
Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913) for the Ballets Russes. Le Sacre du printemps
(The Rite of Spring) premiered on May 29, 1913, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Originally,
it was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky who had recently caused a scandal with his erotic
choreography in Debussy’s L’Après–midi d’un faune. Nicholas Roerich created the stage
designs and costumes which were very colorful, Russian, and primitive. The music and
choreography were so radical that it caused an uproar among the audience which led to rioting.
It has been said that objects were thrown at the orchestra and dancers and that the police had to
be called.
Shortly after the premier of The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky came down with typhoid from bad
seafood and was placed in a nursing home in Paris for about a month and a half. Once he was
well, he returned to Ustilug and completed his first opera, Rossignol Le (The Nightingale) that
had been commissioned by the Moscow Free Theatre and he had begun in 1908. By the time he
