Symphony in C

The Symphony was written between 1938 and 1940 on a commission from American philanthropist Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss. It was a turbulent period of the composer's life, marked by illness and deaths in his immediate family. In 1937, Stravinsky was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which had already forced his wife and two daughters to a sanatorium in Switzerland. Stravinsky's daughter Ludmilla and wife Catherine died of their illnesses in November 1938 and March 1939, followed by Stravinsky's own quarantine and the death of his mother Anna in June 1939. He also suffered a cerebral thrombosis while conducting the symphony at a 1956 concert in Berlin, Germany.