Stravinsky’s savage masterpiece was lauded by jazz musicians, inspired countless film scores – and made Disney dinosaurs dance. What would music be without it?
There is a story that Igor Stravinsky went to the New York jazz club Birdland one evening in 1951. Whispers went round that the great composer was in the house. When Charlie Parker came on with his quintet, he didn’t acknowledge Stravinsky in person, but seamlessly quoted The Firebird in his first number, the furiously fast Ko-Ko. Stravinsky was so delighted that he banged his glass on the table, spilling its contents on the people at the table behind. Parker’s musical quote could just as easily have been The Rite of Spring; two years earlier, in Paris, he’d quoted the opening bassoon melody in his solo on Salt Peanuts, acknowledging that he was in the city that gave birth to The Rite at its scandalous premiere in 1913.
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