Rimsky-Korsakov organized several concerts in St. Petersburg that would showcase the work of his students. In 1909, Stravinsky's "Scherzo Fantastique" and "Fireworks" premiered at one of these concerts. In attendance that night was Serge Diaghilev who had just formed the Ballet Russe with dancer Vaclav Nijinsky and choreographer Mikhail Fokine. Following the concert, Diaghilev approached Stravinsky and asked him to write a ballet for his troupe based on the legend of Firebird. Lucky for Stravinsky, the composer originally commissioned to compose Firebird had failed to meet the deadline(Hadzovic). This was Stravinsky's big break. "The Firebird" would eventually become one of Stravinsky's most well-known and successful works. "The Firebird" was first preformed in Paris in 1910. The ballet was a tremendous success and Stravinsky became world famous virtually overnight(Hadzovic). .
"The Firebird" is considered to be the most traditional and derivative of any of Stravinsky's ballets. While it is similar to "Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring", it can also be viewed as "warmed-over Rimsky-Korsakov". "The device of contrasting a folkloristic, diatonic style representing human characters with a highly chromatic style reserved for depicting the supernatural had its most conspicuous use in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "The Golden Cockerel" (Nousiainen). As one critic put it Stravinsky was, "the direct descendant of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov." The influences of Rimsky-Korsakov on "The Firebird" are strong and reflect not only the styles of Stravinsky's teacher, but also the Russian style of composition in the early twentieth century(Nousiainen). Stravinsky himself wrote, "The Firebird belongs to the styles of its time. It is more vigorous than most of the composed folk music of the period, but it is also not very original. These are all good conditions for a success."(Stravinsky 29) It was for these reasons that the young Stravinsky (he was just twenty seven when he composed "The Firebird") was thought to be by many contemporary musicians and critics, a traditionalist and a nationalist.
