Early life in Russia, 1882–1901 , from which Stravinsky's family descended Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia—a town renamed
Lomonosov in 1948, about west of
Saint Petersburg—on . Oranienbaum was then part of
Petergofsky Uyezd in the
Saint Petersburg Governorate of the
Russian Empire and is now part of
Petrodvortsovy District in Saint Petersburg. His mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya (), was an amateur singer and pianist from an established family of landowners. His father,
Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, was a
bass at the
Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, descended from a line of
Polish landowners. The name "Stravinsky" is of Polish origin, deriving from the
Strava river in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The family was originally called "Soulima-Stravinsky", bearing the
Soulima arms, but "Soulima" was dropped after the
partitions of Poland. The Stravinsky family vacationed in Oranienbaum during summers, and their primary residence was an apartment along the
Kryukov Canal in
central Saint Petersburg, near the Mariinsky Theater. Stravinsky was
baptized hours after birth and joined to the
Russian Orthodox Church in
St. Nicholas Cathedral. Constantly in fear of the short-tempered Fyodor and indifferent towards Anna, Stravinsky lived there for the first 27 years of his life with three siblings: Roman and Yury, his older siblings who irritated him immensely, and Gury, his close younger brother with whom he said he found "the love and understanding denied us by our parents". Stravinsky was educated by the family's governess until the age of 11, when he began attending the
Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium in present-day
Admiralteysky District, a school that he recalled hating because he had few friends. From the age of nine, Stravinsky studied privately with a piano teacher. He later wrote that Fyodor and Anna saw no musical talent in him due to his lack of technical skills; Stravinsky frequently improvised instead of practicing assigned pieces. His excellent
sight-reading skill prompted him to frequently read vocal scores from Fyodor's vast personal library. At around the age of 10, Stravinsky began regularly attending performances at the Mariinsky Theater, where he was introduced to Russian
repertoire as well as
Italian and
French opera; by the age of 16, he attended rehearsals at the theater five or six days a week. By the age of 14, Stravinsky had mastered the solo part of
Mendelssohn's
Piano Concerto No. 1, and at the age of 15, he transcribed for solo piano a
string quartet by
Alexander Glazunov.
Higher education, 1901–1909 Student compositions , painted by
Valentin Serov in 1898 Despite Stravinsky's musical passion and ability, Fyodor and Anna expected him to study law at the
University of Saint Petersburg, and he enrolled there in 1901. However, according to his own account, Stravinsky was a bad student and attended few of the optional lectures. In exchange for agreeing to attend law school, Fyodor and Anna allowed for lessons in
harmony and
counterpoint. At university, Stravinsky befriended Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, a son of leading Russian composer
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. During summer vacation of 1902, Stravinsky traveled with Vladimir to
Heidelberg, Germany – where the latter's family was staying – bringing a portfolio of pieces to demonstrate to Rimsky-Korsakov. While Rimsky-Korsakov was not stunned, he was impressed enough to insist that Stravinsky continue lessons but advised against him entering the
Saint Petersburg Conservatory due to its rigorous environment. Importantly, Rimsky-Korsakov agreed personally to advise Stravinsky on his compositions. After Fyodor died in 1902, Stravinsky became more independent and increasingly involved in Rimsky-Korsakov's circle of artists. Stravinsky's first major task from Rimsky-Korsakov was the four-movement
Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor in the style of Glazunov and
Tchaikovsky – Stravinsky paused temporarily to write a
cantata for Rimsky-Korsakov's 60th birthday celebration, which the latter described as "not bad". Soon after finishing the sonata, Stravinsky began his large-scale
Symphony in E-flat, the first draft of which he finished in 1905. That year, the dedicatee of the Piano Sonata, Nikolay Richter, performed it at a recital hosted by the Rimsky-Korsakovs, marking the first public premiere of a Stravinsky piece. After the events of
Bloody Sunday in January 1905 caused the university to close, Stravinsky was not able to take his final exams, resulting in his graduation with a half-diploma. As he began spending more time in Rimsky-Korsakov's circle of artists, Stravinsky became increasingly cramped in the stylistically
conservative atmosphere: modern music was questioned, and concerts of contemporary music were looked down upon. The group occasionally attended chamber concerts oriented to modern music, and while Rimsky-Korsakov and his colleague
Anatoly Lyadov hated attending, Stravinsky remembered the concerts as intriguing and intellectually stimulating, being the first place he was exposed to French composers like
Franck,
Dukas,
Fauré, and
Debussy. Nevertheless, Stravinsky remained loyal to Rimsky-Korsakov –
musicologist Eric Walter White suspected that the former believed that compliance with the latter was necessary to succeed in the Russian music world. Stravinsky later wrote that Rimsky-Korsakov's musical conservatism was justified and helped him build the foundation that would become the base of his style. In 1908, he sent Rimsky-Korsakov the score to ''
Feu d'artifice''. It was returned with the note: “Not delivered on account of death of addressee.”
First marriage in 1907 In August 1905, Stravinsky announced his engagement to
Yekaterina Nosenko, his first cousin, whom he had met in 1890 during a family trip. He later recalled:From our first hour together we both seemed to realize that we would one day marry—or so we told each other later. Perhaps we were always more like brother and sister. I was a deeply lonely child and I wanted a sister of my own. Catherine, who was my first cousin, came into my life as a kind of long-wanted sister... We were from then until her death extremely close, and closer than lovers sometimes are, for mere lovers may be strangers though they live and love together all their lives... Catherine was my dearest friend and playmate ... until we grew into our marriage.The two had grown close during family trips, encouraging each other's interest in painting and drawing, swimming together often, going on wild raspberry picks, helping build a
tennis court, playing
piano duet music, and later organizing group readings with their other cousins of books and political tracts from Fyodor's personal library. In July 1901, Stravinsky expressed infatuation with Lyudmila Kuxina, Yekaterina's best friend, but after the self-described "summer romance" had ended, the relationship between Stravinsky and Yekaterina began developing into a furtive romance. Between their intermittent family visits, Yekaterina studied painting at the
Académie Colarossi in
Paris. The couple married on 24 January 1906 at the Church of the Annunciation five miles (eight kilometers) north of Saint Petersburg – because
marriage between first cousins was banned, they procured a priest who did not ask their identities, and the only guests present were Rimsky-Korsakov's sons. The couple soon had two children: a son named
Théodore, born in 1907, and a daughter named Ludmila, born the following year. After finishing the many revisions of the Symphony in E-flat in 1907, Stravinsky wrote
Faun and Shepherdess, a setting of three
Pushkin poems for
mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov organized the first public premiere of Stravinsky's work with the Imperial Court Orchestra in April 1907, programming the Symphony in E-flat and
Faun and Shepherdess. Rimsky-Korsakov's death in June 1908 caused Stravinsky deep mourning, and Stravinsky later recalled that
Funeral Song, which he composed in memory of his mentor, was "the best of my works before
The Firebird".
International fame, 1909–1920 Ballets for Diaghilev In 1898,
Sergei Diaghilev, an
impresario, founded the Russian art magazine
Mir iskusstva, but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia. In 1907, Diaghilev presented a five-concert series of Russian music at the
Paris Opera; the following year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of
Boris Godunov. Diaghilev attended the February 1909 premiere of two new Stravinsky works:
Scherzo fantastique and ''
Feu d'artifice'', both lively orchestral
movements featuring bright
orchestration and unique harmonic
techniques. The vivid color and tone of Stravinsky's works intrigued Diaghilev, and the latter subsequently commissioned the former to orchestrate music by
Chopin for parts of the ballet
. This
ballet was presented by Diaghilev's ballet company, the
Ballets Russes, in April 1909, and while the company scored successes with Parisian audiences, Stravinsky was working on Act I of his first opera
The Nightingale. As the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something that had recently become popular with French and other Western audiences (likely due to the group of Russian classical composers known as
The Five, according to musicologist
Richard Taruskin); his company settled on the subject of the mythical
Firebird. Diaghilev asked multiple composers to write the ballet's score, including Lyadov and
Nikolai Tcherepnin, but after none committed to the project, Diaghilev turned to Stravinsky, who gladly accepted the task. During the ballet's production, Stravinsky became close with Diaghilev's artistic circle, who were impressed by his enthusiasm to learn more about non-musical art forms.
The Firebird premiered in Paris (as ) on 25 June 1910 to widespread critical acclaim, making Stravinsky an overnight sensation. Many critics praised his alignment with Russian nationalist music. Stravinsky later recollected that after the premiere and subsequent performances, he met many figures in the Paris art scene; Debussy was brought on stage after the premiere and invited Stravinsky to dinner, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two. The Stravinsky family moved to
Lausanne, Switzerland, for the birth of their third child, a son named
Soulima, and it was there that Stravinsky began work on a ''
for piano and orchestra depicting the tale of a puppet coming to life. After hearing the early drafts, Diaghilev convinced Stravinsky to turn it into a ballet for the 1911 season. The resulting work, Petrushka (under the French spelling Petrouchka
), premiered in Paris on 13 June 1911 to equal acclaim as The Firebird'', and Stravinsky became established as one of the most advanced young theater composers of his time. While composing
The Firebird, Stravinsky conceived an idea for a work about what he called "a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death". He immediately shared the idea with
Nicholas Roerich, a friend and painter of pagan subjects. When Stravinsky told him about the idea, Diaghilev excitedly agreed to commission the work. After the premiere of
Petrushka, Stravinsky settled at his family's residence in
Ustilug, then part of
Vladimir-Volynsky Uyezd in
Volhynia Governorate and now part of
Volodymyr Raion in the
Volyn Oblast of
Ukraine, and fleshed out the details of the ballet with Roerich, later finishing the work in
Clarens, Switzerland. The result was
The Rite of Spring (), which depicted pagan rituals in Slavonic tribes and used many
avant-garde techniques, including uneven rhythms and meters, superimposed harmonies,
atonality, and extensive
instrumentation. With radical
choreography by the young
Vaslav Nijinsky, the ballet's experimental nature
caused a near-riot at its premiere at the
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 29 May 1913.
Illness and wartime collaborations (1915)|left Soon after, Stravinsky was admitted to a hospital for
typhoid fever and stayed in recovery for five weeks; numerous colleagues visited him, including Debussy,
Manuel de Falla,
Maurice Ravel, and
Florent Schmitt. Upon returning to his family in Ustilug, Stravinsky continued work on his opera
The Nightingale, with an official commission from the Moscow Free Theatre. In early 1914, Yekaterina contracted
tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium in
Leysin, Switzerland, where the couple's fourth child, a daughter named Maria Milena, was born. There, Stravinsky finished
The Nightingale, but after the Moscow Free Theatre closed before the premiere, Diaghilev agreed to stage the opera. The May 1914 premiere was moderately successful; critics' high expectations after the tumultuous
Rite of Spring were not met, though fellow composers were impressed by the music's emotion and free treatment of counterpoint and
themes. In early July 1914, while his family resided in Switzerland near Yekaterina, Stravinsky traveled to Russia to retrieve texts for his next work, a ballet-cantata depicting
Russian wedding traditions titled . Soon after he returned,
World War I began, and the Stravinskys lived in Switzerland until 1920, initially residing in Clarens and later
Morges. During the first months of the war, Stravinsky intensely researched
Russian folk poetry and prepared
librettos for numerous works to be composed in the coming years, including ''
, Renard, , and other song cycles. Stravinsky met numerous Swiss-French artists during his time in Morges, including writer Charles F. Ramuz, with whom he collaborated on the small-scale theater work ''. The eleven-musician and two-dancer show was designed for easy travel, but after a premiere run funded by
Werner Reinhart, all other performances were canceled due to the
Spanish flu epidemic. Stravinsky's income from performance royalties was suddenly cut off when his
Germany-based publisher suspended operations due to the war. To keep his family afloat, Stravinsky sold numerous manuscripts and accepted commissions from wealthy impresarios; one such commission included
Renard, a theater work completed in 1916 upon a request from
Princesse Edmond de Polignac. Additionally, Stravinsky made a new concert
suite from
The Firebird and sold it to a London publisher in an attempt to regain copyright control over the ballet. Diaghilev continued to organize Ballets Russes shows across Europe, including two charity concerts for the
Red Cross, where Stravinsky made his conducting debut with
The Firebird. When the Ballets Russes traveled to Rome in April 1917, Stravinsky met Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso, and the two adventured around
Italy; a they saw in Naples inspired the ballet
Pulcinella, which premiered in Paris in May 1920 with designs by Picasso.
France, 1920–1939 Turn towards neoclassicism After the war ended, Stravinsky decided that his residence in Switzerland was too far from Europe's musical activity, and briefly moved his family to
Carantec, France. In September 1920, they moved to the home of French fashion designer
Coco Chanel, an associate of Diaghilev's; there, Stravinsky composed the
Symphonies of Wind Instruments, his early
neoclassical work. After his relationship with Chanel developed into an affair, Stravinsky moved his family to the
white émigré-hub
Biarritz, France, in May 1921, partly due to the presence of his other lover
Vera de Bosset. At the time, Vera was married to former Ballet Russes stage designer
Serge Sudeikin, though she later divorced him to marry Stravinsky. Though Yekaterina became aware of Stravinsky's infidelity, the couple never divorced, likely due to his refusal to separate. In 1921, Stravinsky signed a contract with the
player piano company
Pleyel to create
piano roll arrangements of his music. He received a studio at their factory on the Rue Rochechouart, where he reorchestrated '''' for a small ensemble including player piano. Stravinsky transcribed many of his major works for the mechanical pianos, and the Pleyel premises remained his Paris base until 1933, even after the player piano had been largely supplanted by electrical
gramophone recording. Stravinsky signed another contract in 1924, this time with the
Aeolian Company in London, producing rolls that included comments about the work by Stravinsky that were engraved into the rolls. He stopped working with player pianos in 1930 when the Aeolian Company's London branch was dissolved. The interest in Pushkin shared by Stravinsky and Diaghilev led to
Mavra, a
comic opera begun in 1921 that exhibited the former's rejection of Rimsky-Korsakov's style and his turn towards classic Russian operatists like Tchaikovsky,
Glinka, and
Dargomyzhsky. Yet, after the 1922 premiere, the work's tame nature – compared to the innovative music Stravinsky had come to be known for – disappointed critics. In 1923, Stravinsky finished orchestrating '''', settling on a
percussion ensemble including four pianos. The Ballets Russes staged the ballet-cantata that June, and although it initially received moderate reviews, the London production received a flurry of critical attacks, leading English writer
H. G. Wells to publish an
open letter in support of the work. During this period, Stravinsky expanded his involvement in conducting and piano performance. He conducted the premiere of his
Octet in 1923 and served as the soloist for the premiere of his
Piano Concerto in 1924. Following its debut, he embarked on a tour, performing the concerto in over 40 concerts.
Religious crisis and international touring and
Serge Lifar in '''' The Stravinsky family moved again in September 1924, this time to
Nice, France. Stravinsky's schedule was divided between spending time with his family in Nice, performing in Paris, and touring other locations, often accompanied by Vera. At the time, he was going through a spiritual crisis onset by meeting Father Nicolas, a priest near his new home. Stravinsky had abandoned the Russian Orthodox Church during his teenage years, but after meeting Father Nicolas in 1926 and reconnecting with his faith, he began regularly attending services. From then until moving to the United States, Stravinsky diligently attended church, participated in charity work, and studied religious texts. He later wrote that he was contacted by God at a service at the
Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua in Italy, leading him to write his first religious composition, the for
a cappella choir. In 1925, Stravinsky asked French writer and artist
Jean Cocteau to write the libretto for an operatic setting of
Sophocles's tragedy
Oedipus Rex in Latin. The May 1927 premiere of Stravinsky's opera-oratorio
Oedipus rex was staged as a concert performance since there was too little time and money to present it as a full opera, and Stravinsky attributed the work's critical failure to its programming between two glittery ballets. Furthermore, the influence from Russian Orthodox
vocal music and 18th-century composers like
Handel was not well received in the press after the May 1927 premiere; neoclassicism was not popular with Parisian critics, and Stravinsky had to publicly assert that his music was not part of the movement. This reception from critics was not improved by Stravinsky's next ballet, '''', which depicted the birth and
apotheosis of
Apollo using an 18th-century musical style.
George Balanchine choreographed the premiere, beginning decades of collaborations between him and Stravinsky. Nevertheless, some critics found it a turning point in Stravinsky's neoclassical music, describing it as a pure work that blended neoclassical ideas with modern methods of composition. A new commission for a ballet from Russian-born ballerina
Ida Rubinstein in 1928 led Stravinsky again to Tchaikovsky. Basing the music on
romantic ballets like
Swan Lake and borrowing many themes from Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky wrote ''
The Fairy's Kiss'' with Danish writer
Hans Christian Andersen's tale
The Ice-Maiden as the subject. The November 1928 premiere was not well-received, likely due to the disconnect between each of the ballet's sections and the mediocre choreography, of which Stravinsky disapproved. Diaghilev's fury with Stravinsky for accepting a ballet commission from someone else caused an intense feud between the two, one that lasted until the former's death in August 1929. Most of that year was spent composing a new solo piano work, the
Capriccio, and touring across Europe to conduct and perform piano; the Capriccio's success after the December 1929 premiere caused a flurry of performance requests from many orchestras. A commission from the
Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930 for a symphonic work led Stravinsky back to Latin texts, this time from the book of
Psalms. Between touring concerts, he composed the choral
Symphony of Psalms, a deeply religious work that premiered in December of that year.
Work with Dushkin , date unknown|upright While touring in Germany, Stravinsky visited his publisher's home and met Polish-American violinist
Samuel Dushkin, who convinced him to compose the
Violin Concerto with the latter's help on the solo part. Impressed by Dushkin's
virtuosic ability and understanding of music, Stravinsky wrote more music for violin and piano, and rearranged some of his earlier music to be performed alongside the Concerto while on tour until 1933. That year, Stravinsky received another ballet commission from Rubenstein for a setting of a poem by French writer
André Gide. The resulting melodrama only received three performances in 1934 due to its lukewarm reception, and Stravinsky's disdain towards the work was evident in his later suggestion that the libretto be rewritten. In June of that year, Stravinsky became a naturalized French citizen, protecting all his future works under copyright in France and the United States. The Stravinsky family subsequently moved to an apartment on the
Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, where he began writing a two-volume autobiography with the help of
Walter Nouvel, published in 1935 and 1936 as . After the short run of
Perséphone, Stravinsky embarked on a successful three-month tour of the United States with Dushkin; he visited South America for the first time the following year. Soulima was an excellent pianist, having performed the Capriccio in concert with Stravinsky conducting. Continuing a line of solo piano works, Stravinsky composed the
Concerto for Two Pianos to be performed by them both, and they toured the work through 1936. Around this time came three American-commissioned works: the ballet for Balanchine, the
Brandenburg Concerto-like work
Dumbarton Oaks, and the lamenting
Symphony in C for the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 50th anniversary. Stravinsky's last years in France from late 1938 to 1939 were marked by the deaths of Ludmila, Yekaterina, and Anna, the former two from tuberculosis. In addition, the increasingly hostile criticism of his music in major publications and failed run for a seat at the
Institut de France in Paris further dissociated him from France, and shortly after the beginning of
World War II in September 1939, he moved to the United States.
United States, 1939–1971 Adjustment to the United States and commercial works '' magazine in 1948 Upon arriving in the United States, Stravinsky resided with
Edward W. Forbes, the director of the
Charles Eliot Norton Lectures series at
Harvard University. Stravinsky was contracted to deliver six lectures for the series, beginning in October 1939 and ending in April 1940. The lectures, written with assistance from
Pyotr Suvchinsky and
Alexis Roland-Manuel, were published in French under the title (
Poetics of Music) in 1941, with an English translation following in 1947. Between lectures, Stravinsky finished the Symphony in C and toured across the country, meeting Vera upon her arrival in New York. Stravinsky and Vera married on 9 March 1940 in
Bedford, Massachusetts. After the completion of his lecture series, the couple moved to
Los Angeles, where they applied for
American naturalization. There Stravinsky and his wife became close friends of the violinist and musicologist
Sol Babitz, and became the godparents of Babitz's daughter, the writer and artist
Eve Babitz. Money became scarce as the war stopped Stravinsky from receiving European royalties, making him take up numerous conducting engagements and compose commercial works for the entertainment industry, including the for
Paul Whiteman and the for a
Broadway revue. He allowed
The Rite of Spring to be used in
Walt Disney's 1940 animated feature
Fantasia that featured a rearranged and shortened version of the piece by
Leopold Stokowski. Some discarded film music made it into larger works, as with the war-inspired
Symphony in Three Movements, the middle movement of which used music from an unused score for
The Song of Bernadette (1943). The poor English of Stravinsky and Vera led to the formation of a predominantly European social circle and home life: the estate staff consisted of mostly Russians, and frequent guests included musicians
Joseph Szigeti,
Arthur Rubinstein, and
Sergei Rachmaninoff. However, Stravinsky eventually joined popular
Hollywood circles, attending parties with celebrities, and becoming closely acquainted with European authors
Aldous Huxley,
W. H. Auden,
Christopher Isherwood, and
Dylan Thomas. In 1945, Stravinsky received American citizenship and subsequently signed a contract with British publishing house
Boosey & Hawkes, who agreed to publish all his future works. Additionally, he revised many of his older works and had Boosey & Hawkes publish the new editions to re-copyright his older works. Around the 1948 premiere of another Balanchine collaboration, the ballet
Orpheus, Stravinsky met young conductor
Robert Craft in New York; Craft had asked Stravinsky to explain the revision of the
Symphonies of Wind Instruments for an upcoming concert. The two quickly became friends, and Stravinsky invited Craft to Los Angeles; Craft soon became Stravinsky's assistant, collaborator, and
amanuensis until the latter's death. In 1942,
Barnum and Bailey commissioned Balanchine to choreograph circus music for elepehants. Balanchine asked Stravinsky to compose it. Stravinsky asked who the piece was for. "Elephants" Balanchine explained. “How old?” the composer inquired. “Young.” "If they are very young, I will do it. " This was the origin of the
Circus Polka.
Turn towards serialism '', upon which Stravinsky based
his opera of the same name As he became more familiar with English, Stravinsky developed the idea to write an English-language opera based on
William Hogarth's series of paintings ''
The Rake's Progress. Stravinsky joined Auden to write the libretto in November 1947; American writer Chester Kallman was later brought in to assist Auden. Stravinsky finished the opera of the same name in 1951, and despite its widespread performances and success, he was dismayed to find that his newer music did not captivate young composers. Craft had introduced Stravinsky to the serial music of the Second Viennese School shortly after The Rake's Progress'' premiered, while the latter began studying and listening to the music of
Anton Webern and
Arnold Schoenberg. During the 1950s, Stravinsky continued touring extensively across the world, occasionally returning to Los Angeles to compose. In 1953, he agreed to compose a new opera with a libretto by Dylan Thomas, but development on the project came to a sudden end following the latter's death in November of that year. Stravinsky completed
In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, his first work fully based on the serial
twelve-tone technique, the following year. The 1956 cantata ''
premiered at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice, inspiring to commission the musical setting in 1957. With the Balanchine ballet Agon, Stravinsky fused neoclassical themes with the twelve-tone technique, and showed his full shift towards use of tone rows. In 1959, Craft interviewed Stravinsky for an article titled Answers to 35 Questions'', in which the latter sought to correct myths surrounding him and discuss his relationships with other artists. The article was later expanded into a book, and over the next four years, three more interview-style books were published. Continued international tours brought Stravinsky to Washington, D.C., in January 1962, and he attended a dinner at the
White House with then-President
John F. Kennedy in honor of the former's 80th birthday. Although it was largely an
anti-Soviet political stunt, Stravinsky remembered the event fondly, composing the
Elegy for J.F.K. after
Kennedy's assassination a year later. In September 1962, Stravinsky returned to Russia for the first time since 1914, accepting an invitation from the
Union of Soviet Composers to conduct six performances in Moscow and Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). After the success of
The Firebird and
The Rite of Spring in the 1910s, his music was respected and frequently performed in the
Soviet Union, influencing young Soviet composers at the time like
Shostakovich. However, after
Stalin began consolidating power in the early 1930s, Stravinsky's music nearly vanished and was formally banned in 1948. A new interest in Stravinsky works was born during the
Khrushchev Thaw, partly due to his three-week visit in 1962, during which he met with Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev and several leading Soviet composers, including Shostakovich and
Khachaturian. After eight months of almost continual traveling, Stravinsky returned to Los Angeles in December 1962.
Final works and death in September 1962 Stravinsky revisited biblical themes for many of his later works, notably in the 1961 chamber cantata
A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, the 1962 musical television production
The Flood, the 1963 Hebrew cantata
Abraham and Isaac, and the 1966
Requiem Canticles, the last of which was his final major composition. Between tours, he worked relentlessly to devise new tone rows, even working on toilet paper from
airplane lavatories. The intense touring schedule began taking a toll on Stravinsky; January 1967 marked his last recording session, and his final concert came the following May. An obviously very frail Stravinsky made his final public conducting appearance on 17 May 1967 at
Massey Hall in
Toronto when he led the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his
Pulcinella Suite. After spending the autumn of 1967 in the hospital due to bleeding
stomach ulcers and
thrombosis, Stravinsky returned to domestic touring in 1968 (only appearing as an audience member) but stopped composing due to his gradual decline in physical health. In his final years, Stravinsky moved to New York with Vera and Craft to be closer to medical care, and the former's travel was limited to visiting family in Europe. Stravinsky was discharged from
Lenox Hill Hospital in
Manhattan after contracting
pulmonary edema. He subsequently moved with Vera to a new apartment on
Fifth Avenue, where he died on 6 April 1971 at the age of 88. A funeral service was held three days later at the
Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on
Madison Avenue. After a service at
Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice with a performance of the
Requiem Canticles conducted by Craft, Stravinsky was buried on the cemetery island of
San Michele, several meters from Diaghilev's tomb. == Music ==