The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky

Spanning nearly three‐quarters of the twentieth century, Stravinsky’s works were hugely influential, and this Companion deals reasonably comprehensively, if not exhaustively, with many aspects of them. Beethoven’s compositional career can famously be divided into three periods, and so can Stravinsky’s, although in his case the changes are more strikingly abrupt. The contributors discuss his Russian period, the neo‐classicism, and finally serialism.

His teacher, Rimsky‐Korsakov, had a profound influence on his early works, but he soon developed his own style, while retaining the older composer’s frequent use of so‐called octatonic scale. That he caught the attention of Diaghilev with one of...