In 1909, Igor Stravinsky was a skinny 28-year-old no-name who got the chance of a lifetime. He took it. He wrote the score for a ballet called The Firebird and became a giant of 20th-century music overnight.

Stravinsky's ballet was an assignment by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev for a Russian ballet company in Paris. Young Stravinsky had been Diaghilev's fifth choice for the project—he was his first choice for the next one.

Flush with success, Stravinsky felt he needed to get the sounds of The Firebird, out of his head, so he started writing some orchestral music. Along the way, the idea of puppets came to him, akin to the puppet theaters popular on the streets of St. Petersburg. He told Diaghilev about the concept, and they began to kick around ideas together until a scenario for a new ballet took shape.

According to music critic Alex Ross, designer Alexander Benois asked the composer "to write a 'symphony of the street,' a 'counterpoint of twenty themes,' replete with carousels, concertinas, sleigh bells, and popular airs. Stravinsky answered with periodic explosions of dissonance and rhythmic complexity, which mimic the energy of the modern urban crowd."

Using folk songs and dazzling orchestral effects, Stravinsky crafted a vivid music bed for Diahilev's dancers, including an organ-grinder, a street dancer performing to a triangle, a music box, and drummers summoning people to the puppet theater. Thus, Petrushka was born.

In the ballet, a Charlatan brings three puppets to life: Petrushka, the Ballerina, and the Moor. Petrushka pines for the Ballerina, but she prefers the Moor. The Charlatan makes them dance. After the show, the puppets return to their enclosures, and a seduction scene follows. Little Petrushka bursts in on the lovers, but the Moor runs him off. Rushing outside into the bustling crowd, the Moor murders Petrushka. Onlookers cry for justice, but the old magician reminds them that Petrushka is nothing but straw and sawdust. In the end, Petrushka's ghost appears overhead and torments the Charlatan.

Inside the Score:
Stravinsky was a magician with musical instruments. Notice how he pulls you into Petrushka's anguish with a honking bassoon and a cockeyed pas de deux between the Moor (trumpet) and Ballerina (flute). And you can't miss the dancing bear crossing the stage as the double basses play oompahs under a shrieking clarinet and tuba solo.

Full Concert:
• POLINA NAZAYKINSKAYA: Winter Bells
• RACHMANINOFF: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
• STRAVINSKY: Petrushka (rev. 1947)
Aziz Shokhakimov, conductor
Behzod Abduraimov, piano
Jan 17 2025 | Atlanta Symphony Hall