The Firebird suite, written in 1910, was composed by Igor Stravinsky for the Russian Ballet and was a major turning point for both Stravinsky’s career and the growth of Russian ballet performances. As a form of expressive art, music has been one of the oldest modes of expression in the society. Different individuals would have different music and composition styles which are influenced by the culture surrounding them, and the members of the society with whom they interact with 1 . Stemming from this, this paper seeks to identify the influences which resulted in the composition styles of Igor Stravinsky with focus on “The Firebird Suite”. In the succeeding paragraphs, the background of Stravinsky’s childhood development shall be discussed in trying to determine the influence of his childhood interactions with members of the society and his family. Thereafter, Stravinsky’s education shall be detailed. The paper shall then discuss the composition process of “The Firebird Suite”, and thereafter consider the events in Stravinsky’s life after the composition of the title piece. The paper shall then conclude by giving a summary of the highlights of the paper. It has been hypothesized that the influence of the society to the composition style of Stravinsky was significant, especially the interactions with his father, and through this the change in the society as well as the ballet style was significant. In the following paragraph, the childhood background of Igor Stravinsky is discussed.
Born on seventeenth June 1882, Igor Stravinsky would go on to become the most influential composer in the twentieth century. He was born in Russia to a musical family which to most part influenced his attitudes towards music. His father was a bass singer by profession and his mother was the daughter of a high-ranking official in the Kiev Ministry of Estates 2 . The social structures in Russia at the time was such that individuals to were more likely to take after the roles of the members of the family who were already in different positions 3 . At the time of his birth, his family resided in Oranienbaum, a suburban district of Saint Petersburg. In this way, the influence to his music was rather small from the external members of the society. Following on this, his father Fyodor Stravinsky would become his first music teacher 4 . With his father as his teacher, his initial attitudes towards music composition was influenced by the relationship which Igor and his father had, which, like most Russian male children was less than pleasant. The culture of Russia is based on a strong male character. This denoted an absence of the element of nurture in the interactions between male members of the society and their children 5 . Through his school days, Stravinsky did not interact much with the other student’s as he felt there was none that was genuinely attracted to him 6 . This was perhaps one of the influences which led him towards artistry. Psychologically, children who do not interact with others in their age groups are more likely to adapt to art as their way of expression on account of the fact that they are less likely to find an avenue where they can effectively express themselves.
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By the age of fifteen, Stravinsky had mastered “Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in G minor” and had done a piano reduction of a string quartet by Glazunov. While his music talents were not recognized by other members of the Russian music community, he still pursued his musical interests 7 . Additionally, his family was of the idea that Igor was to study to become a lawyer. However, opposed to the idea, Stravinsky ended up attending very few classes during his period of study 8 . Stravinsky did not complete his Law studies on account of the aftermath of “Bloody Sunday” which led to the closure of the school and Stravinsky was given a half-course diploma. In 1902, the year his father died, Stravinsky had spent the summer with the family of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 9 . Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the leading Russian composers at the time advised Stravinsky not to attend formal music education but rather engage in private lessons. Following on the advice, after the closure of the school where he had been studying Law, Stravinsky concentrated in his music lessons.
While Stravinsky had begun showing great talent in music from an early age, the influence of the music community’s attitudes towards the age of the individual was one of the barriers to his career in music 10 . Some of the artists and musicians who were already established did not recognize the talents of the young Stravinsky, including his father. Additionally, the relationship between Igor and his father were strained and by this extension the lessons which he learned from his father may not have heard a great impact on his music interest, but rather the relationship is what may have had the most significant impact 11 . The rationale behind this is that individuals developing would in most cases mirror the emotions and relationships which they had with the closest members of their immediate society 12 . It is perhaps this strained relationship from which Igor derived the aggressive style of his music as shall be discussed later in the style of Stravinsky’s music. Having been able to compose reductions of original pieces at a young age of 15, and with the absence of a formal music teacher, the acceleration of Stravinsky towards music was higher than most of his peers.
The absence from the pressures in society noted by the closure of school, and the death of Stravinsky’s father allowed him to pursue his musical interest without encumbrances unlike in his early childhood. The societal influences which relate to the life of the musician are through the presumed roles of individuals in the society. In most cases, the society expects individuals to conform to certain predefined roles in the society. By this extension, most great artists are usually as a derivative of social deviance. For instance, for Igor Stravinsky, the deviance was from his role as a Law student, which was the societal expectation as represented by the wishes of his parents. There being no more expectation from the society on his path as, Igor was free to pursue his musical interests and as a result became a great composer. Following on this, Stravinsky dedicated most of his time with Rimsky-Korsakov who came to assume the part of Stravinsky’s second father 13 . Through their interactions, Igor began his lessons in orchestra. The relationship between Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky were based on the musical interest. This was favorable considering his relationship with his father as his first teacher. As a result the talent of Stravinsky grew with the lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov.
While on the discussion of the influence of the late childhood and early adulthood on the composition style of Stravinsky, it is prudent to mention Ukraine. Despite his Ukrainian origins from both his father’s and mother’s sides, which were a great cultural influence on the style of music, the period of stay in Ukraine additionally contributed significantly to the nature and the sound which were expressed by Stravinsky’s music 14 . Stravinsky was a frequent visitor of the town of Ustyluh, in Ukraine between 1890 and 1914 15 . However, the impact of the culture to his music was in the earlier years when he was still in his childhood. This was when he was about Eight years of age. It is also during this period that he met his future wife, who was his first cousin; a daughter of his mother’s sister 16 . While the Orthodox Church was opposed to such a union, the influence of the Ukrainian culture allowed his to do so 17 . In addition to the influences of the Ukrainian culture, being born of a relatively well-off family and forced into exile by the denotation of war connoted a sense of severance from his origins. The struggles of young Stravinsky as they were exiled might have influenced his perceptions of society as some history scholars insinuate that Stravinsky had a rather comfortable life as opposed to his recounts of the troubled childhood 18 . The absence of close friends may also have been the rationale for his closeness with his first cousin which later led to marry. The combinations of these child-society interactions would invariably influence his learning objectives and outcomes in music as well as the overall outlet of his music and composition styles 19 . Moreover studying under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov had significant impact on Stravinsky’s styles.
In 1902, with Stravinsky visiting the Rimsky-Korsakov family over summer, he iterated to Nikolai of his interest in music and showed Nikolai some of the pieces which he was working on. Nikolai noted Stravinsky’s talent but advised him against pursuing the interest through formal education. Following the death of Stravinsky’s father later in 1905, Stravinsky became a member of the Rimsky-Korsakov family and made new friends in the family 20 . From this relationship, Stravinsky was able to closely follow the teachings of Rimsky-Korsakov which were based on the orchestral genre and the technical part of music composition. As a result, the influences of Rimsky-Korsakov’s own style have been noted as a feature of Stravinsky’s own personal compositions. The main teachings were in harmony and counterpoint 21 .
Personal study under Rimsky-Korsakov had two impacts to the career of Stravinsky as a composer; first, the lack of connection with the rest of the music world would mean that he was considered a prodigy of Rimsky-Korsakov for the rest of his life. The launch of his career, while it did following the death of his teacher, Stravinsky’s composition would always feature an undertone of Rimsky-Korsakov style of composition. In his first orchestral piece, Stravinsky dedicated the performance to his, “…Dear master, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov…” 22 . This increased the value of his teacher as well as his own. The second impact was the deviation from the normal composition styles of a majority of the other composers. The structure and the processes of Stravinsky’s music were different from, and still is, other music composers. The setup of the instruments as well as the technicalities of the music is significantly different. This enabled notability of the music as it did not sound the same as everyone else’s.
In addition to the influence which the Nikolai had on the works of Stravinsky, there was also the fact that, on account of Stravinsky’s father’s connections with Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky was able to be exposed to the music scene at a much younger age than most composers 23 . Rimsky-Korsakov would allow the young Stravinsky to play and present some of his compositions to Rimsky-Korsakov’s students in school. This gave Stravinsky the grounds to build his reputation as well as work on some of the public demand knowledge which would prove important to his musical career. The influence of Rimsky-Korsakov on the compositions of Stravinsky could be noted in his earlier symphonies and compositions 24 . The first influence was the orchestration of the music pieces. The organization of the compositions which included the composition of the instruments and the setup of the lead and following instruments was based on the knowledge which was passed to him by his master.
The compositions which were based on Rimsky-Korsakov’s style include; the Symphony in E-flat major (1907); Faun and Shepherdess (1907); Scherzo Fantastique (1908); and Feu d'artifice (1908) 25 . However, the pieces, though majorly influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov, also exhibited some of the knowledge in the music of composers as Glazunov, Taneyev, and Tchaikovsky among others 26 . The music which Stravinsky composed during this period is inferred as the primitive era or the Russian era. When Rimsky-Korsakov passed way in 1908, Stravinsky composed “Funeral Song” in honor of the deceased which was performed in 1909. Among the audiences was Sergei Diaghilev, who was the owner of the Ballets Russes 27 . Following a commissioning of Stravinsky to write a composition of the music to be played by the group, Stravinsky composed “Firebird”.
Following from his Russian and Ukrainian cultures, the music of Stravinsky was dotted with an undertone of precision and curiosity. This followed from his perceptions of his core instrument; the Player Piano, which he construed as having a precision he was curious about, and which also eliminated the “notorious liberty…” which players usually assume in the performances 28 . Basing this on the majority of his compositions, including The Firebird Suite, it can be identified that his attitudes towards precision were incredible and this resulted in the formation of the piece which both adhered to the traditional orchestral forms from the Russian era as well as the neoclassical underpinnings of other new instruments 29 . It is this same rationale and tradition which guided the composition of “The Firebird Suite” in 1910. The composition was a ballet composition and fro the work of the composition, Stravinsky included not only the performance of the orchestra, but also the movement of the ballet dancers. This was done in such a way that the composition piece itself included technical commentaries of both the instrumentation as well as the dance performance. This served to increase the precision of the piece in both technical aspects of the entire piece.
The piece was composed of six piano rolls. Each roll began with a description of the motif of the roll. This served to enhance the learning of music by novices in music 30 . In a way, and perhaps being influenced by his process of learning music without proper formal education in the art, Stravinsky sought to inspire individuals wishing to learn music privately, as well as enhance his presence in the scholarly music community on account of the fact that his music career was outside the formal scholarly system and therefore would have been lost to history if such was not passed on to the coming generations. At the time of composing the music, Stravinsky, only 28 then, would emphasize on the use of the Rimsky-Korsakov’s harmony styles 31 . The music which was based on Old Russian folklore bore with the cultural influences of Russia, while still maintaining originality from Stravinsky’s talents.
Diaghilev had previously approached two other composers, the first who rejected the proposal, and the second, who started, but was too slow to start working on the project and later abandoned the commission all together 32 . Upon being interested in Stravinsky’s work which he heard during the funeral of Rimsky-Korsakov, Diaghilev commission Stravinsky for the work and this was the beginning of a partnership which saw the rise of the Russian Ballet music; a genre which gained quick popularity on account of the growing interest in Russian music by French enthusiasts 33 . The composition is a derivative of three Russian folksongs. Stravinsky went on to distinguish different styles in the music based on the characterization which were presented by the musical drama. These were based on the character representations of the characters of the folklore which was being performed. Based on this characterization the mortal characters were denoted by the traditional Russian diatonic, while the magical and immortal characters were denoted by the harmonic sequences 34 . This is a representation, perhaps of the author’s perceptions of what was evil and what he considered good. The use of harmony to represent the antagonist and the other antagonistic elements in the story which was not traditional Russian could depict the assumption by the Stravinsky that what was not traditionally Russian did not represent the correct cultural values, while those which were based on the traditional Russian diatonic type were a representation of the acceptable cultural values. The harmonic division was borrowed from one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s earlier works. This shows the influence that his tutelage under Rimsky-Korsakov still had on his composition 35 . Notably, Stravinsky did not give any definitions of his diatonic parts in the ballet. The entire composition took five months, and despite the hurried composition and the complexity of the piece, it is this that made Igor Stravinsky a notary success in the international scene which preceded many other compositions leading to the composer being referred to as the greatest influence in neoclassical music.
The Firebird Suite accorded international acclamation to Stravinsky. The popularity of the piece, as he inferred was based on the “…material currency…” which was a way to infer that the style became popular on account of the fact that it was based on a style which was commonly used at the time and appreciated by many 36 . The ballet score induced the composition of many other pieces which founded Stravinsky’s successes in the ballet-music style. The succeeding compositions were based on the harmonics which were used in Firebird and this created the niche that was the Russian era ballet compositions 37 . In the following years, Stravinsky composed various other titles for the Ballet Russes with notable growing demand for his works. The Firebird Suite compositions became so prominent to the performance ballet in the years following that Stravinsky became resentful of the popularity.
Based on the successes of The Firebird Suite, Stravinsky’ music career hit a new high. In 1915, Stravinsky was commissioned for an experimental theater performance which resulted in the composition of “Renard”, a piece which influenced his other contemporary experimental pieces thereafter. The success of his experimental theaters built on his success which was founded on the composition of the ballet scores. In 1928, Stravinsky returned to music Centre stage with the composition of his neoclassical pieces and scores; "Apollon musagète" (1928), "Persephone" (1933) and "Orpheus" (1947). The successes of these composition pieces placed Stravinsky at renowned public figure status 38 . In 1953, his neoclassical composition, “The Rakes Progress” was played in the United States which followed a number of performances in the United States including the Santa Fe Opera 39 . This led to more commissions and performances around the world; diverting again from the neoclassical style between 1954 and 1968. This period was known as the serial period and it was during this period that Stravinsky experimented on the dodecaphony technique of composition which featured a twelve-tone technique 40 . One of the most notable features of the compositions of Stravinsky was the changing styles and techniques which he adapted with ease while ensuring that the original structure of the traditions Russian techniques were still incorporated in the music pieces.
Conclusion
The influence of culture on expressive art is evident in the transformation of the composition techniques which Stravinsky experimented on. The role of culture and society on the expressive forms of art which an artist assumes is based on the interactions between the artist and the members of their society. In the case of Stravinsky, this influence noted a projection of the past cultures of Russia, as when as that of the future of internationalization and cultural assimilations. Through the works of Art, as well as following on the historical origins of the composer, it is possible for a learner to understand better the composition techniques and styles of the author of a certain kind of music. This knowledge also enables the listener to be more aligned with the composer and therefore gain better understanding of the works of music. In conclusion, it can be noted that based on the internationalization of music, modern orchestral compositions have and will continue to be influenced by the origins and the style of composition of Igor Stravinsky.
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