Igor Fedorovitch Strawinsky was born at Oranienbaum near Petrograd, June
5th, 1882. His father was a bass singer attached to the court. Igor was
destined for a legal career. But in 1902 he met Rimsky-Korsakoff in
Heidelberg, and abandoned all idea of studying the law. He studied with
Rimsky till 1906. His "Scherzo fantastique," inspired by Maeterlinck's
_Life of the Bee_, which was produced in 1908, attracted the attention
of Sergei Diaghilew to the young composer, and secured him a commission
to write a ballet for Diaghilew's organization. The immediate result was
"L'Oiseau de feu," which was composed and produced in 1910. "Petruschka"
was written in 1911, the composer residing in Rome at the time. "Le
Sacre du printemps" was written in Clarens, where Strawinsky generally
lives. It was produced in Paris in 1913. The opera "Le Rossignol," of
which one act was completed in 1909, and two in 1914, was produced in
Paris and in London just before the war. A new ballet "Les Noces
villageoises" has not as yet been produced.
Other of Strawinsky's compositions are:
Opus 1, "Symphony in E-flat"; Opus 2, "Le Faune et la Bergère," songs
with orchestral accompaniment; Opus 3, "Scherzo fantastique"; Opus 4,
"Feuerswerk"; Opus 5, "Chant funèbre" in memory of Rimsky-Korsakoff;
Opus 6, Four Studies for the pianoforte; Opus 7, Two songs; "Les Rois
des Etoiles," for chorus and orchestra; Three songs on Japanese poems
with orchestral accompaniment; Three pieces for string-quartet; An
unpublished pianoforte sonata; A ballet for clowns.