Stravinsky, Italian Suite, Introduction

Asya Sorshneva violin Elena Tarasova piano The ballet Pulcinella, from which the Suite italienne was drawn, was Stravinsky’s first Neoclassic—or rather “neo-Baroque”—composition. He had been approached by impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1919 about writing an entirely different kind of ballet than the dramatically innovative Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and Rite of Spring (1913). Diaghilev had in mind the recent success of Vincenzo Tommasini’s The Good-humored Ladies, based on harpsichord sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, and asked Stravinsky to consider works by another eighteenth-century Italian, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Stravinsky thought Diaghilev had gone mad, but agreed to look at his selections. This version was arranged for violin by the composer himself in collaboration with Samuel Dushkin in 1933.