Stravinsky work unearthed after 100 years

In a back room of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, amidst a pile of dusty old manuscripts, an early orchestral work by one of the greatest composers of the 20th century has been discovered.

Long believed to have been lost forever, Igor Stravinsky's Pogrebal’naya Pesnya (Funeral Song) was written as a tribute to his teacher, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, not long after Nikolai's death in the summer of 1908. Stravinsky was 26 at the time he composed the work, and basically an unknown figure outside of Russia. The next four years were his most formative, in which the composer wrote Petrushka, The Firebird, and The Rite of Spring.

In a recent article published by The Guardian, Stravinsky specialist Natalya Braginskaya (who led a team of archivists in search of the work) described The Funeral Song as a "slow, unvarying processional with contrasting instrumental timbres," reminiscent of Rimsky-Korsakov, and even Wagner.

It was only when the entire building had to be cleared last year that the work was discovered — among piles of manuscripts, undisturbed for years, and hidden behind stacks of piano and orchestra scores. Thanks to the alertness of a Conservatory librarian, the work was saved from ending up in the trash.

The full score is still missing, but will be reconstructed from the discovered orchestral parts.