Stravinsky’s breakthrough to fame arrived when he embarked on a string of collaborations with ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes—launched in Paris in 1909—quickly became identified with the cutting edge of the European arts scene.

Reflecting on his experience composing Pétrouchka, Stravinsky said, “I had in mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. The orchestra in turn retaliates with menacing trumpet blasts. The outcome is a terrific noise that reaches its climax and ends in the sorrowful and querulous collapse of the poor puppet.”

The idea that Stravinsky should write a violin concerto was born in the minds of music publisher Willy Strecker and of Polish‑born violinist Samuel Dushkin. However much Stravinsky leaned on Dushkin for help with the violin part, the orchestral sound and the whole idea of how to use solo and orchestra together is unmistakably Stravinsky’s own. His flair for making fresh presentations of the familiar is nowhere so evident in this concerto as in matters of color and texture.

The premiere of Le sacre du printemps on May 29, 1913, and the accompanying riot by the Paris audience catapulted Stravinsky, and modern music, onto a path from which there was no turning back. Stravinsky described the piece’s scenario for its concert premiere: “Le sacre du printemps is a musical choreographic work. It represents pagan Russia and is unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of creative power of spring.”