Composer & Librettist Biographies

Igor Stravinsky

Born June 17, 1882 in Oranienbaum, Russia; Died April 6, 1971 in New York City, USA

Igor Stravinsky was born the son of one of the Mariinsky Theater's principal basses who was also a talented amateur pianist.

He would have had the same type of musical education given to any Russian middle class child of his era, but never studied formally at a conservatory. Instead, he took private lessons with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov whose influence was especially great on Act I of The Nightingale.

His early orchestral works Scherzo Fantastique (1908) and Fireworks (1909) impressed ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev for whose Paris-based Ballets Russes Stravinsky wrote The Firebird (1910).

This prompted Stravinsky’s move to Paris in 1911 where he composed a further two ballet scores for Diaghilev’s company: Petrushka (1911), and the Le Sacre du printemps (1913). The latter composition created a scandal and secured Stravinsky’s reputation as one of the world’s foremost avant garde composers.

During the First World War, Stravinsky and his family lived in Switzerland, returning to France only in 1920. After composing the jazz-influenced works of this period such as Ragtime (1918) and The Soldier's Tale (1918), Stravinsky turned to a more pared-down, neo-Classical style that produced pieces as diverse as the ballet Pulcinella (1920), the Symphony of Psalms (1930) and, decades later, the opera The Rake's Progress (1951).

Following a move to the United States after the Second World War, Stravinsky’s work showed a mixture of styles, but still seemed centred on Russian or French traditions.

His new associate, Robert Craft, is credited with helping Stravinsky once again renew his art, and accept the 12-tone compositional style of serial composers Schoenberg and Webern. His late opera for television, The Flood, was written using serial techniques.

Despite declining health in his last years, Stravinsky continued to compose until just before his death on April 6, 1971 in New York City.

Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev

Born on July 11, 1826 in Voronezh, Russia, author Alexander Afanasyev, upon whose stories Stravinsky based his The Fox libretto, was a Russian folklorist best known for his pioneering study and publication of Russian folktales.

He recorded and published over 600 Russian folktales and fairytales, by far the largest folktale collection by any one man in the world. He is considered to be the Russian counterpart to the Brothers Grimm. His first collection was published in eight volumes from 1855 to 1867.

Afanasyev's collections made a highly valuable contribution to the dissemination and legitimization of Russian culture and folk belief. The influence of these folk tales can be seen in the works of many writers and composers, notably Rimski-Korsakov (Sadko, The Snow Maiden) and Stravinsky (The Firebird, Petrushka).

Afanasyev died on Oct. 23, 1871 in Moscow.