Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born on June 17th, 1882 in Oranienbaum, Russia. He was one of four to his polish parents, Anna née Kholodovsky and Fyodor Stravinsky. Igor Stravinsky’s first exposer to music was from his father, who was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. His father helped him learn the love of music. His first musical education began at the age of nine with piano lessons, studying music theory, and attempting composition. By fifteen, he had mastered Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G Minor and finished a piano reduction of a string quartet by Glazunov. That same year, Stravinsky rebelled against the Russian Orthodox Church and abandoned it. Even though he excelled in music, his parents still wanted him to become a lawyer. In 1901, Stravinsky enrolls at the University of Saint Petersburg; however he never attends many of his classes during the four years of school. When it came time to take final examinations in 1905, the school was closed for two months because of Bloody Sunday. He then later received a half course diploma in April 1906. In 1902, Stravinsky began receiving private lessons from Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov, the leading Russian composer at that time. That very same year Stravinsky’s father dies from cancer. In 1905 Igor Stravinsky proposes to his first cousin Catherin Nossenko. Even though the Orthodox Church opposes marriage of first cousins, they got married on January 23rd, 1906. The same of his marriage, Stravinsky’s creates first important composition Symphony in E Flat. The following year they have their first child Theodore and then the next year they have their second child Ludmila. The same year as Ludmila’s birth, Rimsky, Stravinsky’s father like figure, dies.
In 1909, Stravinsky’s compositions, Scherzo fatastique and Feu d’artifice (Fireworks) where performed at a concert in St. Petersburg. In that very audience Serge Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, was extremely impressed. He was so impressed