From the Russian ballets and neoclassical works to the late sacred scores, Stravinsky continually reimagined the relationships between rhythm, instrumental colour and musical form. In The Rite of Spring , a chord is repeated insistently while shifting accents unsettle our sense of what should come next. In Apollo , dance finds another kind of expression in the lucid lines of the strings. In the late Requiem Canticles , funeral prayer is concentrated into brief episodes in which even silence carries weight. These markedly different sound worlds belong to Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), a composer who continually reconsidered how rhythm, instrumental colour and the placement of phrases could shape a musical work. His output is generally approached through three broad phases: the Russian period , the neoclassical turn and his later engagement with serial composition , in which ordered sequences of pitches and their transformations provide a basis for musical development. This divisio...