Igor Stravinsky

One of the most influential figures in musical history, Stravinsky went to law school before embarking on private composition lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov, and beginning his legedary collaboration with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in paris. Early works such as the The Firebird and The Rite of Spring were dissonant, rhythmic and often contained references to Russian folk song. Then followed from around 1921 a neo-classical phase which lasted thirty years. Stravinsky shocked the musical estblishment by adopting serialism in his later years, a technique which he had hitherto shunned, in works such as Canticum Sacrum and Threni.