!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Streamline Training & Documentation: Igor Stravinsky's 127th Birthday

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Igor Stravinsky's 127th Birthday

Following Google's lead, I'm going to dedicate today's post to marking Igor Stravinsky's 127th birthday. Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 (June 5 in the Old Style calendar), and went on to live a long and productive life as a composer. He died April 6, 1971.

(Library of Congress)

In the 1965 video below, you can watch rare footage from BBC Opus Arte showing Stravinsky conducting the concluding eight minutes or so of the 1945 version of his Firebird Suite. The musicians are the New Philharmonia Orchestra performing at the Royal Festival Hall in London.



The 2002 video below shows dancers performing a different part of the ballet, namely the pas de deux of the Firebird and Ivan Tsarevich. (You can read a synopsis of the Firebird story here.) The ballerina is Diana Vishneva, and her partner is Andrei Yakovlev.



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