Death of Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky died on 6 April 1971 in New York City, aged 88. A Russian-born composer who later took French and then American citizenship, Stravinsky was one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century. His ballets for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris, The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, brought him fame, and the violent rhythms of The Rite provoked an uproar at its 1913 premiere. In the 1920s he moved toward a restrained neoclassical style, seen in works such as Pulcinella, the Symphony of Psalms and the opera The Rake's Progress. He settled in the United States in 1939, and in his later years he explored serial techniques. His work continually changed direction, which made him a central figure in modern music.

Open on the timeline