1958 Prokofieff-Stravinsky Lieutenant Kije Op 60 RCA Lp Living Stereo 2150 NM-

$

23

  This is one of those great finds...   NM- Prokofieff-Stravinsky  2150...WOW!!!
Record... looks NM-, a few minor paper marks, Cover... fabulous front, back minor age see pics.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (sometimes spelled Strawinski, Strawinsky, or Stravinskii; Russian: ?????? ????????? ????????????, tr. Igor? Fëdorovi? Stravinskij; IPA: [?i??r? ?f?jod?r?v??t?? str??v?insk??j]; 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian (and later, a naturalized French and American) composer, pianist and conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.

Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by theimpresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring(1913). The last of these transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase" was followed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned to neoclassical music. The works from this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue and symphony). They often paid tribute to the music of earlier masters, such as J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures. His compositions of this period shared traits with examples of his earlier output: rhythmic energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells and clarity of form, of instrumentation and of utterance.[clarification needed]

Biography

Early life in the Russian Empire

Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, the Russian imperial capital,[1] and was brought up in Saint Petersburg.[2]His parents were Fyodor Stravinsky, a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, and Anna (née Kholodovsky).[3] His great-great-grandfather, Stanis?aw Strawi?ski, was of Polish noble descent,[citation needed][clarification needed][4] of the Strawi?ski family of Sulima coat of arms.[5][6] He recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that "I never came across anyone who had any real attraction for me".[7] Stravinsky began piano lessons as a young boy, studying music theory and attempting composition. In 1890, he saw a performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre. By age fifteen, he had mastered Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G minor and finished a piano reduction of a string quartet by Glazunov, who reportedly considered Stravinsky unmusical, and thought little of his skills.[8]

Despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to study law. Stravinsky enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, but he attended fewer than fifty class sessions during his four years of study.[9] In the summer of 1902 Stravinsky stayed with composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and his family in the German city of Heidelberg, where Rimsky-Korsakov, arguably the leading Russian composer at that time, suggested to Stravinsky that he should not enter the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire, but instead study composing by taking private lessons, in large part because of his age.[10] Stravinsky's father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law.[11] The university was closed for two months in 1905 in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday:[12] Stravinsky was prevented from taking his final law examinations and later received a half-course diploma in April 1906.[3] Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music. In 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father.[9]These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakov's death in 1908.[13]

In 1905 he was betrothed to his cousin Yekaterina Gavrilovna Nosenko (called "Katya"), whom he had known since early childhood.[14] In spite of the Orthodox Church's opposition to marriage between first cousins, the couple married on 23 January 1906: their first two children, Fyodor (Theodore) and Ludmila, were born in 1907 and 1908, respectively.[15]

In February 1909, two orchestral works, the Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice (Fireworks) were performed at a concert in Saint Petersburg, where they were heard by Sergei Diaghilev, who was at that time involved in planning to present Russian opera and ballet in Paris. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed byFireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a full-length ballet score, The Firebird.[16]

Life in Switzerland

Stravinsky became an overnight sensation following the success of The Firebird's premiere in Paris on 25 June 1910.[17]

The composer had travelled from his estate in Ustilug, Ukraine, to Paris in early June to attend the final rehearsals and the premiere of The Firebird.[18] His family joined him before the end of the ballet season and they decided to remain in the West for a time, as his wife was expecting their third child. After spending the summer in La Baule, Brittany,[19] they moved to Switzerland in early September. On the 23rd, their second son Sviatoslav Soulima was born at a maternity clinic in Lausanne; at the end of the month, they took up residence in Clarens.[20]

Over the next four years, Stravinsky and his family lived in Russia during the summer months and spent each winter in Switzerland.[21] During this period, Stravinsky composed two further works for the Ballets Russes: Petrushka (1911), and Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring; 1913).

Shortly following the premiere of The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky contracted typhoid from eating bad oysters, and was confined to a Paris nursing home, unable to depart for Ustilug until 11 July.[22]

During the remainder of the summer, Stravinsky turned his attention to completing his first opera, The Nightingale (usually known by its French title Le Rossignol), which he had begun in 1908 (that is, before his association with the Ballets Russes).[23] The work had been commissioned by the Moscow Free Theatre for the handsome fee of 10,000 roubles.[24]

The Stravinsky family returned to Switzerland (as usual) in the fall of 1913. On 15 January 1914, a fourth child, Marie Milène (or Maria Milena), was born in Lausanne. After her delivery, Katya was discovered to have tuberculosis and confined to the sanatorium at Leysin, high in the Alps. Igor and the family took up residence nearby,[25] and he completed Le Rossignol there on 28 March.[26]

In April, they were finally able to return to Clarens.[27] By then, the Moscow Free Theatre had gone bankrupt.[28] As a result, Le Rossignol was first performed under Diaghilev's auspices at the Paris Opéra on 26 May 1914, with sets and costumes designed by Alexandre Benois.[29] Le Rossignol enjoyed only lukewarm success with the public and the critics, apparently because its delicacy did not meet their expectations of the composer of The Rite of Spring.[26] However, composers including Maurice Ravel, Béla Bartók, and Reynaldo Hahn found much to admire in the score's craftsmanship, even alleging to detect the influence of Arnold Schoenberg.[30]

In July, with war looming, Stravinsky made a quick trip to Ustilug to retrieve personal effects including his reference works on Russian folk music. He returned to Switzerland just before national borders closed following the outbreak of World War I.[31] The War and subsequent Russian Revolution made it impossible for Stravinsky to return to his homeland, and he did not set foot upon Russian soil again until October 1962.[32]

In June 1915, Stravinsky and his family moved from Clarens to Morges, a town 6 miles south-west of Lausanne on the shore of Lake Geneva. The family continued to live there (at three different addresses) until 1920.[33]

Stravinsky struggled financially during this period. Russia (and its successor, the USSR) did not adhere to the Berne convention and this created problems for Stravinsky when collecting royalties for the performances of all his Ballets Russes compositions.[34] Stravinsky blamed Diaghilev for his financial troubles, accusing him of failing to live up to the terms of a contract they had signed.[11] He approached the Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart for financial assistance during the time he was writing Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale). Reinhart sponsored and largely underwrote its first performance, conducted by Ernest Ansermet on 28 September 1918 at the Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne.[35] In gratitude, Stravinsky dedicated the work to Reinhart and gave him the original manuscript.[36] Reinhart supported Stravinsky further when he funded a series of concerts of his chamber music in 1919: included was a suite from Histoire du soldat arranged for violin, piano and clarinet,[37] which was first performed on 8 November 1919, in Lausanne.[38] In gratitude to his benefactor, Stravinsky also dedicated his Three Pieces for Clarinet (October–November 1918) to Reinhart, who was an excellent amateur clarinetist.