Igor Stravinsky
“L’Oiseau de feu” (The Firebird), Ballet Music Igor Stravinsky “L’Oiseau de feu” (The Firebird), Ballet Music

In May 1910, the 27‑year‑old and still relatively unknown Russian Igor Stravinsky set foot in the cultural metropolis of Paris for the first time. He had been commissioned to write a work entitled The Firebird (L’Oiseau de feu) – Stravinsky’s momentous contribution to ballet, a genre which, by his own account, he “loved more than anything else”.

The impresario Sergei Diaghilev, blessed with an unfailing nose for talent, had discovered the young man for the legendary Ballets Russes dance company and first tested him with an arrangement of Chopin. When the originally chosen composer, Anatoly Lyadov, withdrew from the new Firebird project, Stravinsky’s hour struck. He threw himself into the work with burning zeal, fired by the intellectual libertinism of the troupe and highly motivated both by the wish “to join this group of progressive and energetic artists” and by his longing to experience an international atmosphere. Diaghilev’s prophecy that here was “a man on the eve of his fame” came true: the triumphant premiere of The Firebird at the Paris Opéra in June 1910 made Stravinsky a star overnight.

According to the composer’s recollection, the libretto – based on a fairy tale by Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev – had many fathers: the choreographer Michel Fokine, who also danced the role of Ivan Tsarevich, Diaghilev and his favourite dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, as well as the designers Alexandre Benois and Léon Bakst. This creative cocktail stirred together Russian fairy‑tale motifs in lavish abundance – the mysterious Firebird, the evil sorcerer, the captive princesses, and the rescuer, the fairy‑tale prince.

The strands of the ballet’s plot can be clearly followed in the gestural music: in the shimmering introduction, the two motifs of the magical Firebird and the sorcerer Kashchei are interwoven. The beguilingly iridescent sound world of the Firebird, enriched with orientalist arabesques, borrows from Debussy’s harmony and orchestration, while the dark timbres and diminished chords of the sorcerer, together with the preference for low woodwinds, belong to a long‑established musical code for the realm of evil. Kashchei’s music also goes back to a “magic scale” of major and minor thirds already used by Stravinsky’s teacher Rimsky‑Korsakov.

The hero Ivan Tsarevich captures the Firebird, but releases it again and receives in return a golden feather that is to protect him from danger. The princesses imprisoned by Kashchei dance a round in the sorcerer’s garden, in front of a golden apple tree. The oboe cantilena here is based on a folk‑song quotation from Rimsky‑Korsakov’s collection.

Ivan falls in love with the beautiful Princess Tsarevna. For the human sphere, Stravinsky – in contrast to the chromaticism of the fantastic world – used clearly diatonic models and elements from Russian folklore. Ivan is captured by Kashchei and, with the help of the feather, summons the Firebird. The magical power of the feathered creature overcomes the sorcerer and his retinue in an “Infernal Dance”, whose spectacular tutti blocks and archaic syncopations already foreshadow Le Sacre du printemps. In the “Berceuse”, the action calms down: the evil sorcerer falls into a deep sleep and is stripped of his power. A solemn hymn in the unusual metre of 7/4 brings about the happy ending for Ivan and Tsarevna. With an apotheosis of the Firebird motif in the brass, the young Stravinsky closes his colour‑saturated score – which he later described, with a touch of self‑irony, as “a bonbon for the listeners”.