The Firebird piece, but also as the beginning of the collaboration between Diaghilev and Stravinsky that would also produce the acclaimed ballets "Petrushka" (1911) and "The Rite of Spring" (1913). Igor Stravinsky was the son of Fyodor Stravinsky, the principal bass at the Imperial Opera, St 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. In 1901, Stravinsky began to study law at St Petersburg University, while taking private
The Rite of Spring Rite" in the autumn; the sketchbooks indicate that he had finished the outline of the final sacrificial dance on 17 November 1912. During the remaining months of winter he worked on the full orchestral score, which he signed and dated as "completed in Clarens, March 8, 1913". He showed the manuscript to Maurice Ravel, who was enthusiastic and predicted, in a letter to a friend, that the first performance of the "Le Sacre" would be as important as the 1902 premiere of Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande". After the orchestral rehearsals began in late March, Monteux drew the composer's attention to