Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882–1971) was a Russian-born American composer. He was regarded as not only the most cosmopolitan of Russian artists but also the greatest composer of the twentieth century.
Born near St. Petersburg to a family of opera singers, Stravinsky began studying music at the age of twenty after finishing a university law course. In 1910, the thirty-year-old left tsarist Russia and settled in Paris. In 1939, as the Nazi army was pressed forward on France, he relocated to the United States and became a citizen in 1945.
Stravinsky wrote more than one hundred compositions. His ballets The Firebird (1910) and The Rite of Spring (1913) surprised Parisian audiences with their irregular rhythms and recurrent dissonances. Subsequently, Stravinsky created a neoclassical style exemplified by the opera The Rake’s Progress (1948–51) and experimented with the serialism compositional technique in such works as the cantata Threni (1958.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Igor Stravinsky
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Freedom
To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Listening
Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Money
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Mistakes, Failure, Wisdom, Knowledge
Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Sin
Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.
—Igor Stravinsky
A good composer does not imitate; he steals.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Music
Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Love
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: The Present, Present
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
—Igor Stravinsky
Topics: Music
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Vladimir Horowitz Russian-born American Pianist
Arthur Rubinstein American Pianist
Jean Sibelius Finnish Composer
Claude Debussy French Composer
Frank Zappa American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer
John Cage American Composer
Isaac Asimov American Novelist, Critic, Popular Scientist
Gian Carlo Menotti Italian-born American Composer
Ayn Rand Russian-born American Novelist
Hector Berlioz French Composer