Stravinsky was the third composer (after Tcherepnin – too busy- and Lyadov – too slow) that Diaghilev asked to write the music for the Russian fairy-tale ballet, The Firebird.
Stravinsky had already done some work for the Ballet Russe – he’d orchestrated some of the numbers for their Chopin arrangements entitled Les Sylphides. So Tcherepnin’s recommendation of the young composer coupled with Diaghilev’s own admiration for the composer’s Feu d’artifice (we heard it last week) finally landed Stravinsky this prestigious commission.
In the score Stravinsky sought to out-do his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov both in brilliance of orchestration (Rimsky had written the, then, standard textbook on orchestral writing) and in the richness of the work’s harmonic invention.
The ballet received it first performance in Paris at the Palais Garnier on 25th June, 1910; it was a major success.
0:49 Allegro moderato
13:05 Scherzo
19:57 Largo
35:42 Finale (Allegro molto)
Seven years later (1917), in spite (or because) of the heat generated by the Stravinsky’s works for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe (Firebird was followed in fairly short order by Petrushka and the Rite of Spring) Prokofiev chose, for his First Symphony, to emulate the less febrile, graceful world of Haydn and Mozart. He called the work the Classical Symphony; it’s still one of the composer’s most popular pieces:
I. Allegro con brio 0:02
II. Larghetto 4:42
III. Gavotte. Non troppo allegro 8:44
IV. Molto vivace10:33
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Iaago
The Art of Listening 