Stravinsky: Fire and Metamorphosis

GREAT COMPOSERSVolume VSTRAVINSKYFire and Metamorphosis1882–1971________________________________________On May 29, 1913, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a thirty-year-old composer sparked one of the greatest scandals in the history of music in a single evening. *The Rite of Spring* had just thrust Western art into the 20th century—and Igor Stravinsky, though he did not yet know it, had embarked on an existence defined not by a single style, but by three successive musical lives.From his childhood in St. Petersburg—spent in the shadow of the Mariinsky Theatre—to his exile in Switzerland and later France; from the incandescent primitivism of *The Rite* to the refined classicism of his Parisian ballets, and finally to the surprising, ultimate shift toward serialism during his American years, this book traces the journey of a creator who constantly reinvented himself throughout his life. Yet, he never betrayed the formal rigor and orchestral mastery that mark him as one of modern music's greatest geniuses.Richly documented and structured in eleven chapters, this volume also explores the controversies that shaped his critical reception—rivalries with Prokofiev, accusations of emotional detachment, and his late-career dialogue with Boulez and the serialist school—thereby shedding light on the immense legacy he bequeathed to both 20th-century music and the music of today.The second part of the book is a musicological essay, studying all the aspects of the multiform work of this composer.