Igor Stravinsky
In 1908 Rimsky-Korsakov died. Stravinsky met Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet impresario. Diaghilev wanted to put on performances of new operas and ballets. He needed a composer to write the music and saw that Stravinsky might be the ideal person. He asked him to write music for a ballet called The Firebird, which was a Russian fairytale. Stravinsky wrote it at Rimsky-Korsakov’s country house and finished it in St Petersburg. The ballet was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 25 June 1910 by the Ballets Russes who were very famous in Europe. Mikhail Fokin was the choreographer. It has remained one of Stravinsky’s most famous pieces of music. Some of the music is often performed in a concert hall without the dancing. This version is called a “suite” (literally “a collection of dances”). It shows his love of Russian folk melody.