Igor Stravinsky, (1882-1971). Russian composer, who took US citizenship in 1945. Stravinsky studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and had his first major success with the fairy-tale ballet The Firelyird (1910), written for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. His third ballet, The Rite of Spring (1913), shocked audiences with its dissonant harmonies and unorthodox rhythms. In subsequent works, such as the ballet Pulcinella (1920) and the music-theatre piece Oedipus Rex (1927), he tried to recall the classicism of 17th- and 18th-century music. To-wards the end of his life Stravinsky adopted the twelve-tone technique of composition invented by Arnold Schoenberg.
