No other composer of the 20th century exerted such a pervasive influence or dominated his art as did Igor Stravinsky during his five-decade musical career. Emerging from the spirit of late Russian nationalism and ending his career with an individual language steeped in 12-tone principles, Stravinsky assumed many aesthetic guises while retaining a distinctive identity. Although he was the son of one of the Mariinsky Theater's principal basses and a talented amateur pianist, Stravinsky had no more musical training than any other Russian upper-class child. He entered law school, but also began private composition and orchestration studies with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. By 1909, his orchestral works Scherzo fantastique and Fireworks had impressed Sergei Diaghilev enough for the producer-director of the Ballet Russes to ask Stravinsky to orchestrate, and subsequently compose, for his company. Stravinsky's triad of early ballets -- The Firebird (1909-1910), Petrushka (1910-1911), and, most important, The Rite of Spring (1911-1913) -- did more to establish his reputation than any of his other works; indeed, the riot that followed the premiere of The Rite is one of the most notorious events in music history. As with his other two ballets, Stravinsky wrote and produced Petrushka in close collaboration with Diaghilev. Stravinsky has written of how he wished to refresh himself after the enormously successful Firebird by composing a Konzertstück (concert piece) for piano and orchestra. Piano vs.orchestra turned out to be a more accurate description, as Stravinsky conceived of the piano representing a puppet endowed with life and contending with trumpet blasts and other violence from the orchestra. He titled it Petrushka after, in his words, "the immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in all countries." When Diaghilev paid a visit to Stravinsky in the summer of 1910, he immediately perceived the work's dramatic possibilities, and they agreed on a full-length ballet exploring Petrushka's adventures, tragedy, and death at the Shrovetide Fair of St. Petersburg.
-- Kendall Briggs