7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7

concerts. His health, however, had begun to deteriorate

even before his arrival in the United States.

Bartók’s last years were marked by the ravages of

leukemia, which often prevented him from teaching,

lecturing, or performing. Nonetheless, he was able to

compose the Concerto for Orchestra (1943), the Sonata for

violin solo (1944), and all but the last measures of the Piano

Concerto No. 3 (1945). When he died, his last composition,

a viola concerto, was left an uncompleted mass of sketches

(completed by Tibor Serly, 1945).

Igor Stravinsky

(b. June 5 [June 17, New Style], 1882, Oranienbaum [now Lomonosov],

near St. Petersburg, Russia—d. April 6, 1971, New York, N.Y., U.S.)

R

ussian-born composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky’s

works had a revolutionary impact on musical thought

and sensibility just before and after World War I, and his

compositions remained a touchstone of modernism for

much of his long career.

Early Years

Stravinsky’s father was one of the leading Russian operatic

basses of his day, and the mixture of the musical, theatrical,

and literary spheres in the Stravinsky family household

exerted a lasting influence on the composer. Nevertheless

his own musical ability emerged quite slowly. As a boy he

was given lessons in piano and music theory. But then

he studied law and philosophy at St. Petersburg Univer sity

(graduating in 1905), and only gradually did he become

aware of his aptitude for musical composition. In 1902 he

showed some of his early pieces to the composer Nikolay

Rimsky-Korsakov, who was sufficiently impressed to take

Stravinsky as a private pupil, while at the same time