United States, 1939–1971
Upon arriving in the United States, Stravinsky resided with Edward W. Forbes, the director of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures series at Harvard University. Stravinsky was contracted to deliver six lectures for the series, beginning in October 1939 and ending in April 1940. The lectures, written with assistance from Pyotr Suvchinsky and Alexis Roland-Manuel, were published in French under the title Poétique musicale (Poetics of Music) in 1941, with an English translation following in 1947. Between lectures, Stravinsky finished the Symphony in C and toured across the country, meeting Vera upon her arrival in New York. Stravinsky and Vera married on 9 March 1940 in Bedford, Massachusetts. After the completion of his lecture series, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where they applied for American naturalization. There Stravinsky and his wife became close friends of the violinist and musicologist Sol Babitz, and became the godparents of Babitz's daughter, the writer and artist Eve Babitz.
Money became scarce as the war stopped Stravinsky from receiving European royalties, making him take up numerous conducting engagements and compose commercial works for the entertainment industry, including the Scherzo à la russe for Paul Whiteman and the Scènes de ballet for a Broadway revue. He allowed The Rite of Spring to be used in Walt Disney's 1940 animated feature Fantasia that featured a rearranged and shortened version of the piece by Leopold Stokowski. Some discarded film music made it into larger works, as with the war-inspired Symphony in Three Movements, the middle movement of which used music from an unused score for The Song of Bernadette (1943). The poor English of Stravinsky and Vera led to the formation of a predominantly European social circle and home life: the estate staff consisted of mostly Russians, and frequent guests included musicians Joseph Szigeti, Arthur Rubinstein, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. However, Stravinsky eventually joined popular Hollywood circles, attending parties with celebrities, and becoming closely acquainted with European authors Aldous Huxley, W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and Dylan Thomas.
In 1945, Stravinsky received American citizenship and subsequently signed a contract with British publishing house Boosey & Hawkes, who agreed to publish all his future works. Additionally, he revised many of his older works and had Boosey & Hawkes publish the new editions to re-copyright his older works. Around the 1948 premiere of another Balanchine collaboration, the ballet Orpheus, Stravinsky met young conductor Robert Craft in New York; Craft had asked Stravinsky to explain the revision of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments for an upcoming concert. The two quickly became friends, and Stravinsky invited Craft to Los Angeles; Craft soon became Stravinsky's assistant, collaborator, and amanuensis until the latter's death. In 1942, Barnum and Bailey commissioned Balanchine to choreograph circus music for elephants. Balanchine asked Stravinsky to compose it. Stravinsky asked who the piece was for. "Elephants" Balanchine explained. "How old?" the composer inquired. "Young." "If they are very young, I will do it. " This was the origin of the Circus Polka.
As he became more familiar with English, Stravinsky developed the idea to write an English-language opera based on William Hogarth's series of paintings The Rake's Progress. Stravinsky joined Auden to write the libretto in November 1947; American writer Chester Kallman was later brought in to assist Auden. Stravinsky finished the opera of the same name in 1951, and despite its widespread performances and success, he was dismayed to find that his newer music did not captivate young composers. Craft had introduced Stravinsky to the serial music of the Second Viennese School shortly after The Rake's Progress premiered, while the latter began studying and listening to the music of Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg.
During the 1950s, Stravinsky continued touring extensively across the world, occasionally returning to Los Angeles to compose. In 1953, he agreed to compose a new opera with a libretto by Dylan Thomas, but development on the project came to a sudden end following the latter's death in November of that year. Stravinsky completed In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, his first work fully based on the serial twelve-tone technique, the following year. The 1956 cantata Canticum Sacrum premiered at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice, inspiring Norddeutscher Rundfunk to commission the musical setting Threni in 1957. With the Balanchine ballet Agon, Stravinsky fused neoclassical themes with the twelve-tone technique, and Threni showed his full shift towards use of tone rows. In 1959, Craft interviewed Stravinsky for an article titled Answers to 35 Questions, in which the latter sought to correct myths surrounding him and discuss his relationships with other artists. The article was later expanded into a book, and over the next four years, three more interview-style books were published.
Continued international tours brought Stravinsky to Washington, D.C., in January 1962, and he attended a dinner at the White House with then-President John F. Kennedy in honor of the former's 80th birthday. Although it was largely an anti-Soviet political stunt, Stravinsky remembered the event fondly, composing the Elegy for J.F.K. after Kennedy's assassination a year later. In September 1962, Stravinsky returned to Russia for the first time since 1914, accepting an invitation from the Union of Soviet Composers to conduct six performances in Moscow and Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). After the success of The Firebird and The Rite of Spring in the 1910s, his music was respected and frequently performed in the Soviet Union, influencing young Soviet composers at the time like Shostakovich. However, after Stalin began consolidating power in the early 1930s, Stravinsky's music nearly vanished and was formally banned in 1948. A new interest in Stravinsky works was born during the Khrushchev Thaw, partly due to his three-week visit in 1962, during which he met with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and several leading Soviet composers, including Shostakovich and Khachaturian. After eight months of almost continual traveling, Stravinsky returned to Los Angeles in December 1962.
Stravinsky revisited biblical themes for many of his later works, notably in the 1961 chamber cantata A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, the 1962 musical television production The Flood, the 1963 Hebrew cantata Abraham and Isaac, and the 1966 Requiem Canticles, the last of which was his final major composition. Between tours, he worked relentlessly to devise new tone rows, even working on toilet paper from airplane lavatories. The intense touring schedule began taking a toll on Stravinsky; January 1967 marked his last recording session, and his final concert came the following May. An obviously very frail Stravinsky made his final public conducting appearance on 17 May 1967 at Massey Hall when he led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his Pulcinella Suite.
After spending the autumn of 1967 in the hospital due to bleeding stomach ulcers and thrombosis, Stravinsky returned to domestic touring in 1968 (only appearing as an audience member) but stopped composing due to his gradual decline in physical health.
In his final years, Stravinsky moved to New York with Vera and Craft to be closer to medical care, and the former's travel was limited to visiting family in Europe. Stravinsky was discharged from Lenox Hill Hospital after contracting pulmonary edema. He subsequently moved with Vera to a new apartment on Fifth Avenue, where he died on 6 April 1971 at the age of 88. A funeral service was held three days later at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel. After a service at Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice with a performance of the Requiem Canticles conducted by Craft, Stravinsky was buried on the cemetery island of San Michele, several meters from Diaghilev's tomb.
