The Firebird the Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov (1855–1914) to write the music. There is no evidence, however, despite the much-repeated story that Lyadov was slow to start composing the work, that he ever accepted the commission to begin with. There is evidence to suggest that Nikolai Tcherepnin had previously started composing music for the ballet—music which became "The Enchanted Kingdom"—but that Tcherepnin, for reasons unexplained, withdrew from the project after completing only one scene. Diaghilev eventually transferred the commission to the 28-year-old Stravinsky. The ballet was premiered by the Ballets Russes at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 25 June 1910, conducted
The Rite of Spring orchestras would be reluctant to pay a second rental charge from two publishers to match the full work and the revised Sacrificial Dance; moreover, the revised dance could only be published in America. The 1948 score provided copyright protection to the work in America, where it had lapsed, but Boosey (who acquired the Editions Russe catalogue) did not have the rights to the revised finale. The 1929 score as revised in 1948 forms the basis of most modern performances of "The Rite." Boosey & Hawkes reissued their 1948 edition in 1965, and produced a newly engraved edition (B&H 19441) in