Ravinia 2026 Issue 3

vague interest in the project, Lyadov left with the libretto then broke off communication. Sensing a dead end, Diaghilev admitted to Ben- oit that “in a pinch, if Lyadov refuses, we’ll have to ask Glazunov, but how much I’d prefer the former!” No documentation exists that indicates Diaghilev ever consulted Glazunov about the ballet. So far, every composer identified had pri- or connections to the Ballets Russes. Sokolov, who penned the preface to Cherepnin’s The En- chanted Kingdom , might have been next in line for consideration. Determined to settle the as- signment, Diaghilev asked composer, musicolo- gist, and music critic Boris Asafyev who among the young musicians could tackle a Russian bal- let score. “Going through them all in my mind,” Asafyev later wrote, “I answered without hesita- tion, ‘Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, the son of the famous singer.’ ” Contrary to popular belief, Diaghilev was not unfamiliar with Stravinsky’s abilities, having already commissioned the up- and-coming composer to orchestrate two pieces by Chopin for the ballet Les Sylphides as part of the Ballets Russes’ 1909 season. Anticipating the commission, Stravinsky al- ready had begun sketching music for The Firebird in October or November 1909 at the Rimsky-Korsakov family dacha in Lyubensk, accompanied by Alexander, his close friend and the son of his late teacher Nikolay Rimsky-Kor- sakov. These initial drafts could only have ad- dressed music for the principal characters, since Stravinsky had not yet received the scenario. The official commission arrived in December, and the eager composer embarked on what he later characterized as a “close collaboration” with Fokine in which “we studied the libretto together, episode by episode.” In actual fact, Fo- kine dictated the precise design of each number, leaving Stravinsky to supply music according to the choreographer’s exact specifications. A more independent artist began to emerge by the end of the composition process. For the second A young Igor Stravinsky scene, Fokine originally designated a series of processional dances celebrating the wedding of Prince Ivan Tsarevich and Tsarevna of Great Beauty, an overworked formula that Stravinsky successfully petitioned to have removed. Stravinsky finished composition in March 1910, applied final touches to the orchestration in ear- ly April, and mailed the orchestral score to Paris by the middle of the month. To promote the premiere, Diaghilev had arranged a private pre- view of the ballet music in St. Petersburg on April 10, in the offices of the journal Apollon . Twenty years later, the critic Robert Brussel re- corded his memories of this event: “The com- poser, young, slim, and uncommunicative, with vague meditative eyes, and lips set firm in an energetic looking face, was at the piano. But the moment he began to play, the modest and dimly lit dwelling glowed with a dazzling radiance. By the end of the first scene, I was conquered: by the last, I was lost in admiration. The manu- script on the music-rest, scored over with fine penciling, revealed a masterpiece.” After one more round of revisions, Stravinsky dated the finished score on May 18, 1910, and entered a dedication to Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov. The euphoric composer arrived in Paris at the end of May—his first visit to the city—and attended every rehearsal, supervising the music and help- ing the dancers master his tricky rhythms in preparation for opening night. The full Firebird ballet score is organized into three parts: an introduction and two tableaux, the first presenting the central fairy tale and the second offering its dénouement. Individu- al numbers fall into two broad categories that Taruskin interpreted in operatic terms: danc- es, which function as set pieces like arias, and pantomimes, which advance the narrative in a manner analogous to recitatives. In terms of the Tamara Karsavina (Firebird) and Mikhail Fokine (Prince Ivan) in the Firebird ballet (1910) orchestration, Stravinsky years later described his theatrically grandiose ensemble as “waste- fully large, but I was more proud of some of the orchestration than the music itself.” Early in the compositional process, Stravinsky assigned scale formations—diatonic for mortals such as Ivan and the Princesses, and chromat- ic for the supernatural figures of the Firebird (whole-tone) and Kashchey (octatonic)—and developed distinctive melodic patterns, or Leit- motifs , to differentiate the characters musically. When the Aeolian Company issued a series of piano rolls with music from The Firebird in 1928, Stravinsky admitted an over-reliance on these Wagnerian techniques in the accompanying program notes: “When I composed The Firebird , I had not yet completely broken with all the pro- cedures of the music drama. For example, I re- mained as yet rather susceptible to the system of musically characterizing the personages and the dramatic situations. And this system involved the introduction of some procedures of the type called Leit-musique [recurringmusicwith specif- ic dramatic associations].” Stravinsky later refashioned The Firebird music into three orchestral suites. The First Concert Suite (1911) comprises the introduction and four dances, with instrumentation roughly compa- rable to that of the full ballet. Conceived for a smaller ensemble, the Second Concert Suite (1919) combines the introduction with four dance pieces, only one of which overlaps with the first suite. In 1945, Stravinsky compiled a 10-movement Ballet Suite—including the intro- duction, three pantomimes, and six dances— scored for the same reduced instrumentation as the Second Concert Suite. The Firebird enjoyed immense critical and pop- ular acclaim at its premiere on June 25, 1910, at Paris’s Théâtre National de l’Opéra (Palais Garnier). Henri Ghéon, writing for Nouvelle revue française (1910), praised the production’s artistic unity: “ The Firebird , being the result of an intimate collaboration between choreogra- phy, music, and painting, presents us with the most exquisite miracle of harmony imaginable, of sound and form and movement.” Though hardly an impartial observer, Benoit singled out Stravinsky’s contributions for special praise: “In its music, it achieved complete perfection. Music more poetic, music more expressive of every moment and shading, music more beauti- ful-sounding and phantasmagoric, could not be imagined.” Even Diaghilev had recognized that something extraordinary was unfolding during rehearsals: “Mark him well. He is a man on the eve of celebrity.” As prophesied, the Ballets Russ- es production of The Firebird thrust 28-year-old Igor Stravinsky into a spotlight that he never relinquished. –Program notes © 2026 Todd E. Sullivan RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 3 – AUGUST 16 , 2026 80