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103-464: The Firebird (French: L'Oiseau de feu ; Russian: Жар-птица , romanized:  Zhar-ptitsa ) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky . It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine , who collaborated with Alexandre Benois and others on a scenario based on

206-528: A Firebird, and himself into a great black Falcon, picked her up in his talons, and stole her away from her village. To leave a memory of herself with her village forever she shed her feathers onto the land below. As the last feather fell Maryushka died in the falcon's talons. The glowing rainbow feathers were magic and remain undimmed, but show their colors only to those who love beauty and seek to make beauty for others. Irina Zheleytova translates another version, The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa . In this version

309-457: A Russian could have composed it, because it lacks the slightest trace of any stagnant Germanness." Orientalism was not confined to using authentic Eastern melodies. What became more important than the melodies themselves were the musical conventions added to them. These conventions allowed orientalism to become an avenue for writing music on subjects considered unmentionable otherwise, such as political themes and erotic fantasies. It also became

412-409: A choreographer. He later described his style as a diversion from the "conventional system of gesticulation " and a move towards natural expression through movement. The wide resources and experienced artists that Fokine accessed allowed him to create massive productions like The Firebird . Each character or group had their own unique choreography, creating complex scenes like the "Infernal Dance", where

515-416: A composer. Balakirev, who had never had any systematic course in harmony and counterpoint and had not even superficially applied himself to them, evidently thought such studies quite unnecessary ... An excellent pianist, a superior sight reader of music, a splendid improviser, endowed by nature with the sense of correct harmony and part-writing, he possessed a technique partly native and partly acquired through

618-495: A concert that had been performed for visiting Slav delegations at the "All-Russian Ethnographical Exhibition" in Moscow. The four Russian composers whose works were played at the concert were Mikhail Glinka , Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Mily Balakirev , and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . The article ended with the following statement: God grant that our Slav guests may never forget today's concert; God grant that they may forever preserve

721-465: A distinctly Russian kind of music, writing operas on Russian subjects, but the Mighty Handful represented the first concentrated attempt to develop such a music, with Stasov as their artistic adviser and Dargomyzhsky as an elder statesman to the group, so to speak. The circle began to fall apart during the 1870s, no doubt partially due to the fact that Balakirev withdrew from musical life early in

824-476: A female character was revolutionary for the ballet scene. Excitement for the premiere was great, particularly in Diaghilev's circle of Mir iskusstva collaborators. The sculptor Dmitri Stelletsky  [ fr ] , who helped develop the scenario, wrote to Golovin on 16 June, "I'm staying till Sunday; I must see The Firebird . I have seen your dazzling drawings and costumes. I like Stravinsky's music in

927-580: A five-concert series of Russian music at the Paris Opera ; the next year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of Boris Godunov . By 1909, Diaghilev had connected with Michel Fokine , Léon Bakst , and Alexandre Benois , and gained enough money to start his independent ballet company, the Ballets Russes . Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate music by Chopin for

1030-436: A friend of Diaghilev's, wrote: "By the end of the first scene, I was conquered: by the last, I was lost in admiration. The manuscript on the music-rest, scored over with fine pencillings, revealed a masterpiece." Despite later lamenting the "descriptive music of a kind I did not want to write", Stravinsky finished The Firebird in about six months, and had it fully orchestrated by mid-May 1910. Stravinsky arrived in Paris around

1133-418: A king's archer is on a hunt and runs across a firebird's feather. The archer's horse warns the archer not to touch it, as bad things will happen. The archer ignores the advice and takes it to bring back to the king so he will be praised and rewarded. When the king is presented with the feather he demands the entire firebird or the death of the archer. The archer weeps to his horse, who instructs him to put corn on

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1236-473: A lesser light, and of little promise at that, in spite of his undoubted talent. It seemed to them that there was something missing in him and, in their eyes, he was in need of advice and criticism. Balakirev often said that Mussorgsky had 'no head' or that his 'brains were weak.' ... Balakirev thought that Cui understood little in symphony and musical forms and nothing in orchestration, but was a past master in vocal and operatic music; Cui, in turn, thought Balakirev

1339-438: A major or minor third, and the lower voice ascends a tritone while the higher voice descends a half step . The title character's leit-harmony uses a chromatic descent of the first four notes of the introduction, then reversing those notes, giving the music an "iridescent sheen", as Eric Walter White described it. Stravinsky wrote that The Firebird may be the first appearance of "metrical irregularity" in his music. The passage

1442-441: A master in symphony, form, and orchestration, but with little liking for operatic composition and vocal music in general. Thus they complemented each other, but each, in his own way, felt mature and grown up. Borodin, Mussorgsky, and I, however — we were immature and juvenile. Obviously, towards Balakirev and Cui we were in somewhat subordinate relations; their opinions were listened to unconditionally.... Except perhaps for Cui,

1545-567: A means of expressing Russian supremacy as the empire expanded under Alexander II . This was often reinforced through misogynist symbolism—the rational, active and moral Western man versus the irrational, passive and immoral Eastern woman. Two major works entirely dominated by orientalism are Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Antar and Balakirev's symphonic poem Tamara . Antar , set in Arabia, uses two different styles of music, Western (Russian) and Eastern (Arabian). The first theme, Antar's,

1648-479: A more overtly misogynistic view of oriental women in Tamara . He had originally planned to write a Caucasan dance called a lezginka , modeled on Glinka, for this work. However, he discovered a poem by Mikhail Lermontov about the beautiful Tamara, who lived in a tower alongside the gorge of Daryal. She lured travelers and allowed them to enjoy a night of sensual delights, only to kill them and throw their bodies into

1751-634: A more violent and grotesque manner, and the Princesses in a looser, gentler way. The role of the Firebird differed from that of traditional ballerinas; female dancers often danced princesses, swans, and lovers, but the Firebird was a mysterious and abstract idea, represented as a magical force rather than a person. Her choreography featured exaggerated classical steps, with deep bending at the waist; Fokine wanted her to be "powerful, hard to manage, and rebellious" rather than graceful. This new kind of role for

1854-495: A solo horn announcing the break of dawn, another theme borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov. The theme grows in the orchestra, building into a triumphant celebration among the freed subjects ending in a brass fanfare. Shortly after the completion of The Firebird , Stravinsky wrote a piano solo reduction of the whole ballet. The composer later arranged three suites for concert performance, dated 1911, 1919, and 1945. The first suite, titled " suite tirée du conte dansé 'L'oiseau de feu' ",

1957-434: A system of leitmotifs placed in the harmony dubbed "leit-harmony". Stravinsky intentionally used many specialist techniques in the orchestra, including ponticello , col legno , flautando , glissando , and flutter-tonguing . Set in the evil immortal Koschei 's castle, the ballet follows Prince Ivan , who battles Koschei with the help of the magical Firebird. Stravinsky later created three concert suites based on

2060-644: A three-year naval voyage circumnavigating the globe). Mussorgsky had been in the prestigious Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard, and then in the civil service before taking up music; even at the height of his career in the 1870s he was forced by the expense of his drinking habit to hold down a full-time job in the State Forestry Department. In contrast to the élite status and court connections of Conservatory composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , The Five were mainly from

2163-437: A vast musical erudition, with the help of an extraordinary memory, keen and retentive, which means so much in steering a critical course in musical literature ... He instantly felt every technical imperfection or error, he grasped a defect in form at once. Whenever I or other young men, later on, played him our essays at composition, he instantly caught all the defects of form, modulation, and so on, and forthwith seating himself at

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2266-437: A white space suit , defeats him by destroying a specific valve in his system. Neumeier was praised by the critic Oleg Kerensky for giving the ballet "new life" and creating a fascinating effect for the audience "which the original Fokine-Golovine [ sic ] production must have had in Paris sixty years ago". Many other choreographers have staged the work with Fokine's original choreography or created entirely new productions using

2369-480: A wolf's back Riding along a forest path To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar In that land where a princess sits under lock and key, Pining behind massive walls. There gardens surround a palace all of glass; There Firebirds sing by night And peck at golden fruit. The committee drew from several books of Russian fairy tales, in particular Alexander Afanasyev's collection and Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov's The Little Humpbacked Horse . The immortal king Koschei and

2472-596: Is boiled and the horse puts a spell on the archer to protect him from the water. The archer comes out more handsome than anyone had ever seen. The king sees this and jumps in as well but is instead boiled alive. The archer is chosen to be king and marries the princess and they live happily ever after. The Firebird concept has parallels in Iranian legends of magical birds, in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about The Golden Bird , and related Russian magical birds like

2575-428: Is considered one of the most important and authentic revivals; Grigoriev and Tchernicheva worked for Diaghilev during the initial run, and the lead dancer, Margot Fonteyn , was coached by Karsavina. The Sadler's Wells staging also used Goncharova's 1926 designs. A film version of the revival was made in 1959. New York City Ballet 's first big hit as a company after their founding in 1948 was its staging of The Firebird

2678-444: Is described in one of the texts collected by Alexander Afanasyev as having "golden feathers, while its eyes were like unto oriental crystal". Other sources portray a large bird with majestic plumage that glows brightly emitting red, orange, and yellow light, like a bonfire that is just past the turbulent flame. The feathers do not cease glowing if removed, and one feather can light a large room if not concealed. In later iconography,

2781-466: Is marked 4 , with barlines dividing measures into sets of one and two. White wrote that the composer's earlier works made use of consistent musical pulses, "which was to be disturbed as little as possible by tempo rubato ". Stravinsky remarked that he composed The Firebird in "revolt against Rimsky", and that he "tried to surpass him with ponticello , col legno , flautando , glissando , and fluttertongue effects". A performance of

2884-404: Is masculine and Russian in character. The second theme, feminine and oriental in melodic contour, belongs to the queen, Gul Nazar. Rimsky-Korsakov was able to soften the implicit misogyny to some extent. However, female sensuality does exert a paralyzing, ultimately destructive influence. With Gul Nazar extinguishing Antar's life in a final embrace, the woman overcomes the man. Balakirev gives

2987-477: Is true Russia!" Debussy later said of Stravinsky's score, "What do you expect? One has to start somewhere." Richard Strauss told the composer in private that he had made a "mistake" in beginning the piece pianissimo instead of astonishing the public with a "sudden crash". Shortly after he summed up to the press his experience of hearing The Firebird for the first time by saying, "it's always interesting to hear one's imitators". Sergei Prokofiev , who first heard

3090-475: The American Ballet Theatre . Critics praised the music of The Firebird 's emotional character. Cyril W. Beaumont wrote that the work "is a supreme example of how music, although having no meaning in itself, can, particularly with a programme hint of its intention, evoke a mood appropriate to the ballet concerned." Robert Craft considered the music "as literal as opera", referring to

3193-758: The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb . In 1935 and 1940, Wassily de Basil 's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo revived the Ballets Russes production with Fokine's choreography and Goncharova's designs. Many later revivals modeled their choreography after Fokine's, including Adolph Bolm 's 1945 production at the Ballet Theatre and Serge Lifar 's 1954 Paris Opera Ballet production. Serge Grigoriev and Lubov Tchernicheva 's 1954 Sadler's Wells Ballet staging with Fokine's choreography

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3296-598: The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Five , were five prominent 19th-century Russian composers who worked together to create a distinct national style of classical music : Mily Balakirev (the leader), César Cui , Modest Mussorgsky , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin . They lived in Saint Petersburg and collaborated from 1856 to 1870. In May 1867 the critic Vladimir Stasov wrote an article, titled Mr. Balakirev's Slavic Concert , covering

3399-539: The Royal Opera House . The third ballet on the program was The Firebird , which was well-received. Osbert Sitwell wrote: "Never until that evening had I heard Stravinsky's name; but as the ballet developed, it was impossible to mistake the genius of the composer, or of the artist who had designed the setting." The Ballets Russes revived the production in 1926 with new settings and costumes by Natalia Goncharova , using Fokine's original choreography. The revival

3502-521: The Sirin . The story of the quest itself is closely paralleled by Armenian Hazaran Blbul . In the Armenian tale, however, the bird does not glow, but rather makes the land bloom through its song. In Czech folklore, it is called Pták Ohnivák (Fire-like Bird) and appears, for example, in a Karel Jaromír Erben fairy tale, also as an object of a difficult quest. Moreover, in the beginning of this fairy tale,

3605-480: The "mimetic specificity" with which the music follows the story, a trait Stravinsky later disliked and apologized for. The composer wrote that The Firebird became a centerpiece in his career; his conducting debut was a ballet performance of The Firebird in 1915, and he said that he performed it "nearly a thousand times" more. Fokine's revolutionary Firebird character was part of an effort to combine new ideas with classical ballet, showing his wide-ranging abilities as

3708-526: The 1911 suite. A film version of the popular Sadler's Wells Ballet production, which revived Fokine's original choreography, was produced in 1959. Igor Stravinsky began studying composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1902. He completed several works during his time as a student, including his first performed work, Pastorale (1907), and his first published work, the Symphony in E-flat (1907), which

3811-708: The 1945 suite with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York in 1946, and the complete ballet with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in 1961. A film version of the Sadler's Wells Ballet revival was made in 1959, with Margot Fonteyn in the lead role. A production by the Dance Theater of Harlem with Stephanie Dabney in the lead was filmed for television in 1982. Firebird (Slavic folklore) The Firebird

3914-431: The Firebird enchants Koschei's subjects but they all dance differently. Dance critic Alastair Macaulay called this the "most complex choreography that had ever been attempted in ballet" at the time. Throughout the score, Stravinsky used leitmotifs (short, recurring musical phrases associated with a particular person, place, or thing) placed in the harmony , a system he later dubbed "leit-harmony". The idea of leit-harmony

4017-431: The Firebird is freed, Ivan takes one of her feathers, and thirteen enchanted princesses (all captives of Koschei) enter the garden to play a catching game. Ivan introduces himself to the youngest princess, with whom he has fallen in love, and they perform a slow khorovod . The melody for the khorovod is taken from a Russian folk song that Rimsky-Korsakov used in his Sinfonietta on Russian Themes (1879). Offstage trumpets call

4120-421: The Firebird, Fokine as Prince Ivan, Vera Fokina  [ fr ] as the youngest princess, and Alexis Bulgakov as Koschei. Karsavina later told an interviewer, "With every performance, success went crescendo ". Critics praised the ballet for the unity of the decor, choreography, and music. "The old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic back-cloth seems to have been invented to a formula identical with that of

4223-409: The Firebird, dressed in a red leotard, dies in battle, he "rises from the ashes and lives again", as Béjart said in an interview for The New Yorker . In 1970, John Neumeier devised a science-fiction production of the ballet set in a futuristic world but retaining the original plot. In the initial Oper Frankfurt production, Koschei is a large glass robot with CCTV eyes; the Firebird, wearing

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4326-645: The London Aeolian Company and some from the Paris Pleyel Company. In 1928, the Aeolian Company published an "Audiographic" piano roll of The Firebird , containing both the piano reduction and comments on the work by Stravinsky. The composer identified many of the leit-harmonies in the opening comments of the roll, providing an invaluable resource for information on the ballet. The first orchestral recording of The Firebird

4429-543: The Nobel Prize for his novel Chłopi (The Peasants) . The story takes place in late 19th century Congress Poland and follows the everyday life of the peasantry in a typical Polish village. In the tenth chapter of book two, some of the characters gather together to exchange stories and legends, among which are mentioned the firebirds ( ptaki-żary ). The Five (composers) The Five (Russian: Могучая кучка , lit.   'Mighty Bunch'), also known as

4532-424: The Paris art scene, including Marcel Proust , Sarah Bernhardt , Jean Cocteau , Maurice Ravel , André Gide , and Princesse Edmond de Polignac . Claude Debussy was brought on stage after the premiere, and he invited Stravinsky to dinner, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two composers. According to Sergei Bertensson, Sergei Rachmaninoff said of the music: "Great God! What a work of genius this is! This

4635-623: The River Terek. Balakirev uses two specific codes endemic to orientalism in writing Tamara . The first code, based on obsessive rhythms, note repetitions, climactic effects and accelerated tempi, represents Dionysian intoxication. The second code, consisting of unpredictable rhythms, irregular phrasing and based on long passages with many repeat notes, augmented and diminished intervals and extended melismas , depict sensual longing. Not only did Balakirev use these codes extensively, but he also attempted to supercharge them further when he revised

4738-565: The Russian equivalent "Пятёрка" ("Pyatyorka") is occasionally used to refer to this group). In his memoirs, Rimsky-Korsakov routinely refers to the group as "Balakirev's circle", and occasionally uses "The Mighty Handful", usually with an ironic tone. He also makes the following reference to "The Five": If we leave out of account Lodyzhensky , who accomplished nothing, and Lyadov , who appeared later, Balakirev's circle consisted of Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and me (the French have retained

4841-545: The Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. It was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame and leading to future Diaghilev–Stravinsky collaborations including Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). The Firebird 's mortal and supernatural elements are distinguished with

4944-517: The West both one of the best-known aspects of Russian music and a trait of Russian national character. As leader of "The Five," Balakirev encouraged the use of eastern themes and harmonies to set their "Russian" music apart from the German symphonism of Anton Rubinstein and other Western-oriented composers. Because Rimsky-Korsakov used Russian folk and oriental melodies in his First Symphony , Stasov and

5047-521: The archer; however, when the princess awakes and realizes she is not home she begins to weep. If she is to be married she wants her wedding dress, which is under a rock in the middle of the Blue Sea. Once again the archer weeps to his horse and fulfills his duty to his king and brings back the dress. The princess is stubborn and refuses to marry the king even with her dress until the archer is dipped in boiling water. The archer begs to see his horse before he

5150-416: The artists felt, and still feel now, great difficulty in co-ordinating their steps and gestures with the music". The ballet's success secured Stravinsky's position as Diaghilev's star composer, and there were immediate talks of a sequel, leading to the composition of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring . After the success of the premiere, Diaghilev announced an expansion of performances until 7 July 1910,

5253-676: The ballet Les Sylphides , and the composer was finished by March 1909. Fokine was a renowned dancer, receiving first prize in his class upon graduation from the Imperial Theatre School in 1898; he subsequently entered the Mariinsky Ballet as a soloist and was promoted to lead dancer of the company in 1904. Fokine was dissatisfied with the ballet tradition of glamorous appeals to the audience and interruptions from viewers; he felt that dramatic dance should be strictly displayed with no interruption of illusion, and that

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5356-624: The beginning of June to attend the premiere of his first stage work; it was his first visit to Paris. Rehearsals began in Ekaterininsky Hall , and Stravinsky attended every rehearsal to help with the music, often explaining the complicated rhythms to the dancers. Tamara Karsavina , who originated the titular Firebird role, later recalled, "Often he came early to the theatre before a rehearsal began in order to play for me over and over again some particularly difficult passage." Stravinsky also worked closely with Gabriel Pierné , who conducted

5459-450: The bidding of a father or king. The Firebird is a marvel, highly coveted, but the hero, initially charmed by the wonder of the feather, eventually blames it for his troubles. The Firebird tales follow the classical scheme of fairy tale, with the feather serving as a premonition of a hard journey, with magical helpers met on the way who help in travel and capture of the Bird, and returning from

5562-492: The bird steals magical golden apples belonging to a king and is therefore pursued by the king's servants in order to protect the precious apples. The story of the firebird comes in many forms. Some folk tales say that the Firebird is a mystical bird that flies around a king's castle and at night swoops down and eats all the king's golden apples. Others say that the firebird is just a bird that flies around giving hope to those who need it. Some additions to that legend say that when

5665-465: The bird, but they catch one of his feathers that glows in the night. They take it to a dark room and it lights the room completely. The story of the Firebird quest has inspired literary works, including " The Little Humpback Horse " by Pyotr Yershov and "These Feathered Flames" by Alexandra Overy. The most famous version of the Firebird legend was the production by Sergei Diaghilev of Ballet Russe , who commissioned composer Igor Stravinsky to score

5768-423: The captive Princess were incorporated from a Muscovite anthology of stories, which also helped determine the Firebird's role in the story. Fokine drew on the stark contrast between good and evil in Russian fairy tales while developing the ballet's characters. The choreographer blended fantasy and reality to create the scenario, a trope of romanticism found in many of Fokine's folkish ballets. Originally, Tcherepnin

5871-722: The company arrived in Paris, the ballet was not finished, causing Fokine to extend rehearsals; he petitioned Diaghilev to postpone the premiere, but the impresario declined, fearing public disappointment. The Ballets Russes season began on 4 June 1910 with stagings of Schumann's Carnaval , Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade , and short productions from the previous season. Fokine's style of dance made great use of interpretive movement; he used ideas of expressiveness, naturalism, vitality, and stylistic consistency. The choreographer employed many forms of dance in The Firebird . The titular Firebird danced classically, Koschei and his subjects in

5974-533: The composer categorized Opus 1. In February 1909, a performance of his Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice in Saint Petersburg was attended by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev , who was intrigued by the vividness of Stravinsky's works. Diaghilev founded the art magazine Mir iskusstva in 1898, but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia. In 1907, Diaghilev presented

6077-479: The composers in The Five were young men in 1862. Balakirev was 25, Cui 27, Mussorgsky 23, Borodin the eldest at 28, and Rimsky-Korsakov just 18. They were all self-trained amateurs. Borodin combined composing with a career in chemistry . Cui was an army engineer who, starting in 1857 and throughout 1860s, taught fortification at military academies. Rimsky-Korsakov was a naval officer (he wrote his First Symphony on

6180-517: The concept of pleasure in sound... [His] dissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them". Nikolai Myaskovsky reviewed the piano reduction of the full ballet in October 1911 and wrote, "What a wealth of invention, how much intelligence, temperament, talent, what a remarkable, what a rare piece of work this is". Stravinsky recalled that after the premiere and subsequent performances, he met many figures in

6283-672: The decade for a period of time. All of "The Five" are buried in Tikhvin Cemetery in Saint Petersburg . The musical language The Five developed set them far apart from the Conservatoire. This self-conscious Russian styling was based on two elements: One hallmark of "The Five" was its reliance on orientalism . Many quintessentially "Russian" works were composed in orientalist style, such as Balakirev's Islamey , Borodin's Prince Igor and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade . Orientalism, in fact, became widely considered in

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6386-441: The denomination of " Les Cinq " for us to this day). The Russian word kuchka also spawned the terms "kuchkism" and "kuchkist", which may be applied to artistic aims or works in tune with the sensibilities of the Mighty Handful. The formation of the group began in 1856 with the first meeting of Balakirev and César Cui . Modest Mussorgsky joined them in 1857, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1861, and Alexander Borodin in 1862. All

6489-469: The enormously popular large-scale ballet called The Firebird . In Stravinsky's ballet, with a scenario written by Michel Fokine and Alexandre Benois , the creature is half-woman, half-bird. She is captured by Prince Ivan , but when he sets her free she gives him a magic feather, which he uses to defeat the spell of Kaschei the Immortal , who had captured thirteen princesses. Prince Ivan then marries

6592-619: The faraway land with the prize. There are many versions of the Firebird story as it was primarily told orally in the beginning. Read full article: Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf . Suzanne Massie retells another story of the Firebird legend. A modest and gentle orphan girl named Maryushka lives in a small village. People would come from all over to buy her embroidery, and many merchants asked her to come away and work for them. She told them all that she would sell to any who found her work beautiful, but she would never leave

6695-481: The fields in order to capture the firebird. The firebird comes down to eat, allowing the archer to capture the bird. When the king is presented with the firebird he demands that the archer fetch the Princess Vassilissa so the king may marry her; otherwise, the archer will be killed. The archer goes to the princess' lands and drugs her with wine to bring her back to the king. The king is pleased and rewards

6798-503: The firebird flies around, his eyes sparkle and pearls fall from his beak. The pearls would then fall to the peasants, giving them something to trade for goods or services. In the most common version of the legend, a Tsar commands his three sons to capture the firebird that keeps flying down from above and eating his apples. The golden apples are in the Tsar's orchard and give youth and strength to all who eat them. The sons end up barely missing

6901-468: The following year, with Maria Tallchief as the Firebird, choreography by George Balanchine , and scenery and costumes by Marc Chagall . Balanchine placed a heavy emphasis on the dancing rather than Stravinsky's score, establishing Tallchief as one of the first celebrity American-born and -trained ballerinas. Balanchine revised it in 1970 with Jerome Robbins , the latter of whom choreographed Koschei and his subjects' dance. The young Gelsey Kirkland danced

7004-413: The form of the Firebird is usually that of a smallish fire-colored falcon , complete with a crest on its head and tail feathers with glowing "eyes". A typical role of the Firebird in fairy tales is as an object of a difficult quest. The quest is usually initiated by finding a lost tail feather, at which point the hero sets out to find and capture the live bird, sometimes of his own accord, but usually on

7107-457: The full ballet lasts about 45 minutes. The work is scored for a large orchestra with the following instrumentation: Stravinsky described the orchestra as "wastefully large", but White opined that the orchestration allowed him to use a variety of effects, including horn and trombone glissandi borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov's parts of Mlada (1872). The Firebird opens with a slow introduction describing Koschei's enchanted garden, underlined by

7210-476: The full story became known to him when he met with Fokine in December and received the ballet's planned structure. Fokine ensured the creation of the ballet was an equal effort between the producers and the composer, working closely with Stravinsky while developing the choreography. While the composer worked, Diaghilev organized private performances of the piano score for the press. The French critic Robert Brussel,

7313-474: The last of which Stravinsky took his family to from their home in Ustilug . Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov quickly traveled to Paris to see the expanded run, and he later praised the production in a letter to his mother. Following the initial run, Alexander Siloti conducted the Russian premiere on 23 October, performing an early draft of the 1911 suite. The debut London season of the Ballets Russes took place in 1912 at

7416-437: The low strings presenting the basis of the Firebird's leit-harmony. In the garden are Koschei's enemies petrified into statues. Crescendo and decrescendo phrases in the strings and woodwinds indicate the entrance of the Firebird, being pursued by Prince Ivan. The Firebird's capture by Ivan is depicted with sforzando chords in the horns, and exotic melodies in the oboe, English horn, and viola play as she begs to be released. After

7519-513: The memory of how much poetry, feeling, talent, and intelligence are possessed by the small handful of Russian musicians. The expression "mighty handful" ( Russian : Могучая кучка , Moguchaya kuchka , "Mighty Bunch") was mocked by enemies of Balakirev and Stasov: Aleksandr Serov , academic circles of the conservatory, the Russian Musical Society, and their press supporters. The group ignored critics and continued operating under

7622-599: The minor gentry of the provinces. To some degree their esprit de corps depended on the myth, which they themselves created, of a movement that was more "authentically Russian," in the sense that it was closer to the native soil, than the classic academy. Spurred on by Russian nationalist ideas, the Five “sought to capture elements of rural Russian life, to build national pride, and to prevent western ideals from seeping into their culture.” Before them, Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyzhsky had gone some way towards producing

7725-540: The moniker. This loose collection of composers gathered around Balakirev now included Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Borodin — the five who have come to be associated with the name "Mighty Handful", or sometimes "The Five". Gerald Abraham stated flatly in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that "they never called themselves, nor were they ever called in Russia, 'The Five'" (although today

7828-651: The most beautiful of them. French illustrator Edmund Dulac included a literary version of the legend of the firebird in his book Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations , where the bird is identified as the Firebird and described as "Hausa, the Bird of the Sun". In popular music, Peter Gabriel made a demo titled "Firebirds" whose flute playing (by Gabriel himself) borrows the melody from another piece by Stravinsky: "The Rite of Passage". This song has never been officially released. Polish writer Władysław Reymont received

7931-415: The music should be closely connected to the theme. His 1907 ballets The Dying Swan and Les Sylphides were very successful and established Fokine as a competitor to other prominent choreographers. In 1908, Benois, a member of Diaghilev's Mir iskusstva circle and friend of Fokine's, arranged for the dancer to prepare a repertoire for the Ballets Russes' 1909 season as the company's first lead choreographer;

8034-769: The music. Stagings with new choreography include John Cranko 's 1964 production with the Stuttgart Ballet , Glen Tetley 's 1981 staging with the Royal Danish Ballet , John Taras 's 1982 Caribbean -set rendition with the Dance Theatre of Harlem , Christopher Wheeldon 's 1999 production with the Boston Ballet , Krzysztof Pastor 's 1999 version with the West Australian Ballet , and Alexei Ratmansky 's 2012 production with

8137-621: The only one who has achieved more than mere attempts to promote Russia's true musical spirit and style". Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi hailed the young composer as the legitimate heir to The Mighty Handful . Russian audiences viewed the work less favorably, and the Russian premiere was not well-received; according to a reviewer in Apollon , "Many deserted the Hall of Nobles during the performance of this suite." A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil, Jāzeps Vītols , wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten

8240-472: The orchestra and the dances tremendously. I think the whole thing together with your sets will look spectacular. Serov has also put off his departure because of this ballet". Diaghilev remarked of Stravinsky during rehearsals, "Mark him well, he is a man on the eve of celebrity". The Firebird premiered at the Palais Garnier on 25 June 1910, and was very well-received. The cast starred Karsavina as

8343-434: The orchestration of Tamara in 1898. Rimsky-Korsakov provides the following picture of "The Mighty Handful" in his memoirs, Chronicle of My Musical Life (translated by J. A. Joffe): The tastes of the circle leaned towards Glinka, Schumann, and Beethoven's last quartets ... they had little respect for Mendelssohn ... Mozart and Haydn were considered out of date and naive ... J. S. Bach was held to be petrified ... Chopin

8446-475: The other nationalists dubbed it the "First Russian Symphony," even though Rubinstein had written his Ocean Symphony a dozen years before it. These were themes Balakirev had transcribed in the Caucasus. "The symphony is good," Cui wrote to Rimsky-Korsakov in 1863, while the latter was out on naval deployment. "We played it a few days ago at Balakirev's—to the great pleasure of Stassov. It is really Russian. Only

8549-400: The piano reduction at a gathering, told Stravinsky, "there was no music in [the ballet's introduction] and if there was any, it was from Sadko ". In his 1962 autobiography, Stravinsky credited much of the production's success to Golovin's set and Diaghilev's collaborators; he wrote that Fokine's choreography "always seemed to me to be complicated and overburdened with plastic detail, so that

8652-437: The piano, he would improvise and show how the composition in question should be changed exactly as he indicated, and frequently entire passages in other people's compositions became his and not their putative authors' at all. He was obeyed absolutely, for the spell of his personality was tremendous. ... His influence over those around him was boundless, and resembled some magnetic or mesmeric force. ... he despotically demanded that

8755-475: The premiere with the Colonne Orchestra , to "explain the music   ... [but the musicians] found it no less bewildering than did the dancers". Two dress rehearsals were held to accommodate the dancers, many of whom missed their entrances due to the unexpected changes in the music, "which sounded quite different when played by the orchestra from what it had sounded like when played on a piano". When

8858-496: The princesses back into the palace, but when Ivan pursues them, bells ring out and Koschei appears in front of the gates, signaled by roars in the timpani and bass drum. Before Koschei can turn Ivan into stone, the prince summons the Firebird with the feather, and she enchants Koschei and his subjects and begins the famous "Infernal Dance". Another Rimsky-Korsakov reference, the melody is borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov's parts of Mlada , adding syncopation and startling strikes throughout

8961-408: The scenario of this new ballet, including himself, Benois, the composer Nikolai Tcherepnin , and the painter Aleksandr Golovin . Benois recalled that Pyotr Petrovich Potyomkin, a poet and ballet enthusiast in Diaghilev's circle, proposed the subject of the Firebird to the artists, citing the 1844 poem "A Winter's Journey" by Yakov Polonsky that includes the lines: And in my dreams I see myself on

9064-476: The score upon encouragement from Tcherepnin and Boris Asafyev . Stravinsky began work in October or November   1909, traveling to the Rimsky-Korsakov household with Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov , the son of Stravinsky's teacher and dedicatee of The Firebird 's score. Because Stravinsky began work before Diaghilev officially commissioned him, the composer's sketches did not align with the scenario;

9167-419: The season was very successful, and Diaghilev began organizing plans for the 1910 season soon after. As the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something that had recently become popular with French and other Western audiences (likely due to the glamorous charm of The Five 's music). Fokine unofficially led a committee of artists to devise

9270-520: The shimmering web of the orchestra", wrote Henri Ghéon in Nouvelle revue française ; he called the ballet "the most exquisite marvel of equilibrium" and added that Stravinsky was a "delicious musician". Fokine's choreography was seen as a triumph of his creative genius; the natural miming and many styles of dance displayed were popular with audiences. Many critics praised Stravinsky's alignment with Russian nationalist music, one saying, "[Stravinsky is]

9373-490: The tastes of his pupils should exactly coincide with his own. The slightest deviation from his taste was severely censured by him. By means of raillery, a parody or caricature played by him, whatever did not suit him at the moment was belittled — and the pupil blushed with shame for his expressed opinion and recanted.... Balakirev considered me a symphony specialist ... in the sixties, Balakirev and Cui, though very intimate with Mussorgsky and sincerely fond of him, treated him like

9476-490: The theme. As the dance winds down with very loud brass glissandos, Koschei and his subjects fall asleep from exhaustion. The bassoon introduces the Firebird's tranquil lullaby. Ivan is instructed to destroy the egg that holds Koschei's soul. The music jostles around as Ivan tosses the egg from hand to hand. When Ivan crushes the egg, Koschei dies and the scene is surrounded in "Profound Darkness" while his subjects and enemies are freed from their enchantments. The finale opens with

9579-506: The title role with a new costume inspired by Chagall's sets. New York City Ballet's production remains the most well-known and longest-lived revival in the United States. Maurice Béjart 's 1971 production differed from the traditional themes of the ballet; it featured a male Firebird, representative of the spirit of revolution, leading an all-male group of partisans clad in blue tunics and dungarees through political turmoil. After

9682-513: The village of her birth. One day the evil sorcerer Kaschei the Immortal heard of Maryushka's beautiful needlework and transformed himself into a beautiful young man and visited her. Upon seeing her ability he became enraged that a mere mortal could produce finer work than he himself possessed. He tried to tempt her by offering to make her Queen if she would embroider for him alone, but she refused saying she never wanted to leave her village. Because of this last insult to his ego he turned Maryushka into

9785-423: The work: in 1911, ending with the "Infernal Dance"; in 1919, which remains the most popular today; and in 1945, featuring significant reorchestration and structural changes. Other choreographers have staged the work with Fokine's original choreography or created entirely new productions using the music, some with new settings or themes. Many recordings of the suites have been made; the first was released in 1928, using

9888-452: Was composed in 1911 and published by P. Jurgenson the following year. The instrumentation is essentially the same as that of the ballet. The score was printed from the same plates; only the new endings for the movements were newly engraved. A performance of the 1911 suite lasts about 21 minutes. This suite was composed in Morges , Switzerland, for a smaller orchestra. Walsh alleged the suite

9991-497: Was composed to re-copyright the work, as Stravinsky sold the new suite to his publisher J. & W. Chester, despite the original ballet still being in copyright. The score contained many errors; Stravinsky wrote in 1952 that "the parts of the 1919 version were in such poor condition and so full of mistakes". Regardless, the 1919 suite remains the most popular today. A performance of the 1919 suite lasts about 26 minutes. In 1945, shortly before he acquired American citizenship, Stravinsky

10094-527: Was contacted by Leeds Music with a proposal to revise the orchestration of his first three ballets to recopyright them in the United States. The composer agreed and fashioned a new suite based on the 1919 version, adding to it and reorchestrating several minutes of the pantomimes from the original score. The only instrumentation change was the addition of a snare drum. A performance of the 1945 suite lasts about 28 minutes. Stravinsky received several commissions to transcribe his works for player pianos , some from

10197-458: Was likely introduced to the composer through Rimsky-Korsakov's operas The Golden Cockerel (1907) and Kashchey the Deathless (1902). In these works, mortal elements were associated with the diatonic scales while supernatural elements were associated with the chromatic scale . For example, Stravinsky describes Koschei's leit-harmony as consisting of "Magic Thirds"; the harmony begins with

10300-418: Was likened by Balakirev to a nervous society lady ... Berlioz was highly esteemed ...Liszt was comparatively unknown ... Little was said of Wagner ... They respected Dargomyzhsky for the recitative portions of Rusalka ... [but] he was not credited with any considerable talent and was treated with a shade of derision. ...Rubinstein had a reputation as a pianist, but was thought to have neither talent nor taste as

10403-776: Was presented at the Lyceum Theatre in London. In 1916, the first productions of The Firebird and Petrushka on the Iberian peninsula took place; the Ballets Russes returned in 1921 for short season in Madrid . Several companies presented their own choreographies and designs of The Firebird from 1927 to 1933, including the Berlin State Opera , the Royal Swedish Ballet , the Royal Danish Ballet , and

10506-460: Was released by Columbia Records in 1928 with Stravinsky conducting L'Orchestre des Concerts Straram . The 78 rpm record consisted of the 1911 suite with the Lullaby and Finale from the 1919 suite, as well as a recording of The Rite of Spring . In 1933, Stravinsky and the violinist Samuel Dushkin recorded a reduction of the "Scherzo" and "Lullaby" for His Master's Voice . Stravinsky recorded

10609-420: Was to compose the music, as he had previously worked on Le Pavillon d'Armide with Fokine and Benois, but he withdrew from the project. In September   1909, Diaghilev asked Anatoly Lyadov to compose the ballet; Lyadov expressed interest in the production, but took too long to meet the 1910 season's deadline. After considering Alexander Glazunov and Nikolay Sokolov , Diaghilev asked Stravinsky to compose

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