Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky

И́горь Фёдорович Страви́нский

    Igor Stravinsky was born June 17th 1882 in Oranienbaum a suburb in Saint Petersburg. This is where Stravinsky was raised by his parents. His father Fyodor Stravinsky was a bass singer in the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The stravinsky family was of noble polish decent thanks to Stravinskys grandfather.

    Stravinsky started taking piano lessons as a young boy, along with music theory and composition. By the time he was 15 he mastered a Mendelssohn Piano concerto in G minor adn was gifted in the musical art. However dispite this his parents still expected him to pursue a career in law. The same year Stravinskys father died of cancer, Stravinsky started paying more attention to studying music rather than law. He ended up getting a half-diploma in law and pursued a career in music.

    Igor Stravinsky focused mainly on contemporary music. He moved to France for a time and gained a lot of influence from french composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, however he kept his nationalistic Russian influences as well. You can hear how Stravinsky's compositions are influenced in many of his pieces, one of his greatest works is called The Rite of Spring, which is a ballet and orchestral concert written by Stravinsky while in Paris. It was considered one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.

The Rite Of Spring Full Suite.

Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin

    Born January 6th, in Moscow Russia, Died April 27th in Moscow Russia. Although during his lifetime Scriabin was never out of the mainstream music world. However, he was ignored quickly after his death. It was not until recently before his music and ideas were resurrected and studied.

    

    Scriabin wrote five three of which were the "Divine Poem", "Poem of Ecstasy", and the "Poem of Fire or Prometheus". He also wrote 10 piano sonatas which are now considered a must have in professional pianists repertoire. 

    Scriabin's hundreds of etudes and preludes are considered to be masterpieces of 20th century piano music. In the younger years of his life he stuck to the romantic style music but in his later years he began to explore atonality. Some say that if he lived longer than the 43 years he lived Moscow would have been the center of atonality.

    As soon as Scriabin passed, Sergei Rachmaninoff toured all of Russia playing concerts containing only pieces Scriabin wrote. Rachmaninoff and Scriabin were colleagues and students together in the conservatory. When Scriabin and Rachmaninoff were students together Rachmaninoff was the composer and Scriabin was the pianist. It was because of  Scriabin that Rachmaninoff was able to launch is piano career later in his life. 

Enjoy Horowitz play one of Scriabin's piano Etudes.

Op 8 No. 12