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Today marks the anniversary of Gounod’s (1818) and Stravinsky’s (1882) births. Winner of the 1839 Prix de Rome, Gounod studied at the Paris Conservatory. His musical legacy comprises a dozen of operas, oratorios, and several motets and songs. His 1872 piano piece The Funeral March of a Marionette, orchestrated in 1879, achieved fame in the 20th-century as the theme music for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
One of the defining figures of 20th-century music, Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky defied convention and achieved worldwide fame with his compositions for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris. The uproar caused by the premiere of The Rite of Spring is a well-known event in modern musical history. Below, watch the Joffrey Ballet performing the piece in a reproduction of the 1913 costumes, with Vaslav Nijinsky’s original groundbreaking choreography.
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