Igor Stravinsky Igor Stravinsky considered the piano his central working tool and confided to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov that he developed his compositions at the piano. Although he wrote only a few works specifically for this instrument, he primarily used it as a tool for composition. The structure of his scores illustrates how he conceived musical ideas at the piano with expansive arm movements and a large hand grip. A well-known photograph shows Stravinsky playing The Rite of Spring on a simple piano in a Swiss boarding house.
Although the score of the ballet The Rite of Spring does not include a separate piano part, Stravinsky initially presented the work on the piano. Before the premiere, he presented excerpts from it, including some by Debussy; shortly before the premiere, the two musicians played a four-hand piano version. After the sensational Paris performances in 1913, the work was rarely performed until Diaghilev revived it in 1920.
In the 1930s, when Stravinsky focused more on concert music, he composed his Piano Concerto. Inspired by Beethoven and Brahms, it belongs to a series of works that unites various styles. Stravinsky himself referred to this as his "musical manners," emphasizing the multifaceted nature of his artistic output. The comedic Circus Polka, composed during his move to the American West Coast, was an attempt to achieve commercial success without abandoning his distinctive style.