The Firebird

Igor Stravinsky was the son of Fyodor Stravinsky, the principal bass at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, and Anna (née Kholodovskaya), a competent amateur singer and pianist from an old established Russian family. Fyodor's association with many of the leading figures in Russian music, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky, meant that Igor grew up in an intensely musical home.[1] In 1901, Stravinsky began to study law at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, while taking private lessons in harmony and counterpoint. Sensing talent in the young composer's early efforts, Rimsky-Korsakov took Stravinsky under his private tutelage. By the time of his mentor's death in 1908, Stravinsky had produced several works, among them a Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, a Symphony in E-flat, and a short orchestral piece titled Feu d'artifice ("Fireworks").[2][3]

In 1909, Stravinsky's Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice were premiered in Saint Petersburg. Among those in the audience was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was about to debut his Ballets Russes in Paris.[4] Diaghilev's intention was to present new works in a distinctively 20th-century style, and he was looking for fresh compositional talent.[5] Impressed by Stravinsky, he commissioned from him orchestrations of Chopin's music for the ballet Les Sylphides.[6]

Alexandre Benois recalled that in 1908 he had suggested to Diaghilev the production of a Russian nationalist ballet,[7] an idea all the more attractive given both the newly awakened French passion for Russian dance and the expensive costs of staging opera. The inspiration of mixing the mythical Firebird with the unrelated Russian tale of Koschei the Deathless possibly came from a popular child's verse by Yakov Polonsky, "A Winter's Journey" (Zimniy put, 1844), which includes the lines:

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back
Riding along a forest path
To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar (Koschei)
In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,
Pining behind massive walls.
There gardens surround a palace all of glass;
There Firebirds sing by night
And peck at golden fruit.[8]

Benois collaborated with the choreographer Michel Fokine, drawing from several books of Russian fairy tales including the collection of Alexander Afanasyev, to concoct a story involving the Firebird and the evil magician Koschei. The scenery was designed by Aleksandr Golovin and the costumes by Léon Bakst.

Diaghilev first approached the Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov in September 1909 to write the music.[9] There is no evidence that he ever accepted the commission, despite the anecdotal story that he was slow to start composing the work.[10] Nikolai Tcherepnin composed some music for the ballet (which he later used in his The Enchanted Kingdom), but withdrew from the project without explanation after completing only one scene.[11] After deciding against using Alexander Glazunov and Nikolay Sokolov,[12] Diaghilev finally chose the 28-year-old Stravinsky, who had already begun sketching out the music in anticipation of the commission.[12]

Stravinsky would later remark about working with Fokine that it meant "nothing more than to say that we studied the libretto together, episode by episode, until I knew the exact measurements required of the music."[13] Several ideas from works by Rimsky-Korsakov were used in The Firebird. Koschei's "Infernal Dance" borrows the highly chromatic scale Rimsky-Korsakov created for the character Chernobog in his opera Mlada, while the Khorovod uses the same folk tune from his Sinfonietta, Op. 31. The piano score was completed on 21 March 1910 and was fully orchestrated by May, although not before work was briefly interrupted by another Diaghilev commission: an orchestration of Grieg's Kobold, Op. 71, no. 3 for a charity ball dance featuring Vasily Nijinsky.[14]

Soon thereafter, Diaghilev began to organize private sneak previews of The Firebird for the press. French critic Robert Brussel, who attended one of these events, wrote in 1930:

The composer, 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 manuscript on the music-rest, scored over with fine pencillings, revealed a masterpiece.[15]

Tamara Karsavina as the Firebird and Michel Fokine as Prince Ivan in the 1910 Ballets Russes production of the ballet.

The Firebird was premiered by the Ballets Russes at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 25 June 1910, conducted by Gabriel Pierné.[16] Even before the first performance, the company sensed a huge success in the making; and every performance of the ballet in that first production, as Tamara Karsavina recalled, met a "crescendo" of success.[17] "Mark him well," Diaghilev said of Stravinsky, "he is a man on the eve of celebrity."[18]

Critics praised the ballet for its integration of decor, choreography and music. "The old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic back-cloth seems to have been invented to a formula identical with that of the shimmering web of the orchestra," wrote Henri Ghéon in Nouvelle revue française, who called the ballet "the most exquisite marvel of equilibrium" and added that Stravinsky was a "delicious musician."[17][19] Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi hailed the young composer as the legitimate heir to The Mighty Handful.[20] The ballet’s success also secured Stravinsky's position as Diaghilev's star composer, and there were immediate talks of a sequel,[21] leading to the composition of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. In Russia, however, reaction was mixed. While Stravinsky's friend Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov spoke approvingly of it, the press mostly took a dim view of the music, with one critic denouncing what he considered its "horrifying poverty of melodic invention."[22] A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil, Jāzeps Vītols, wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten the concept of pleasure in sound. . . [His] dissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them."[23]

Sergei Bertensson recalled Sergei Rachmaninoff saying of the music: "Great God! What a work of genius this is! This is true Russia!"[24] Another colleague, Claude Debussy, who later became an admirer took a more sober view of the score: "What do you expect? One has to start somewhere."[25] Richard Strauss told the composer in private conversation that he had made a "mistake" in beginning the piece pianissimo instead of astonishing the public with a "sudden crash." Shortly thereafter he summed up to the press his experience of hearing The Firebird for the first time by saying, "it's always interesting to hear one's imitators."[26]

The work is scored for a large orchestra with the following instrumentation:[34]

1. Introduction – Kashchei's Enchanted Garden – Dance of the Firebird
2. Supplication of the Firebird
3. The Princesses' Game with Apples
4. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)
5. Infernal Dance of all Kashchei's Subjects[35]

Instrumentation: essentially as per the original ballet.[36] The score was printed from the same plates, with only the new endings for the movements being newly engraved.

1. Introduction – The Firebird and its dance – The Firebird's variation
2. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)
3. Infernal dance of King Kashchei
4. Berceuse (Lullaby)
5. Finale

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd also piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd also English horn for one measure); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; bass drum; cymbals; triangle; xylophone; harp; piano (also opt. celesta); strings.[37]

This suite was created in Switzerland for conductor Ernest Ansermet.[38] When it was originally published, the score contained many mistakes, which were only fixed in 1985.[36]

1. Introduction – The Firebird and its dance – The Firebird's variation
2. Pantomime I
3. Pas de deux: Firebird and Ivan Tsarevich
4. Pantomime II
5. Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses
6. Pantomime III
7. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)
8. Infernal dance of King Kashchei
9. Berceuse (Lullaby)
10. Finale

Instrumentation: 2 Flutes (2nd also Piccolo); 2 Oboes; 2 Clarinets; 2 Bassoons; 4 Horns; 2 Trumpets; 3 Trombones; Tuba; Timpani; Bass Drum; Snare Drum; Tambourine; Cymbals; Triangle; Xylophone; Harp; Piano; Strings.

In 1945, shortly before he acquired American citizenship, Stravinsky was contacted by Leeds Music with a proposal to revise the orchestration of his first three ballets in order to recopyright them in the United States. The composer agreed, setting aside work on the finale of his Symphony in Three Movements. He proceeded to fashion a new suite based on the 1919 version, adding to it and reorchestrating several minutes of the pantomines from the original score.[39]