Igor Stravinsky was a Russian conductor, pianist, and composer. He is renowned for his compositions for the Ballets Russes, such as The Rite of Spring. The last changed the way the later composers were thinking about rhythmic structure and were primarily responsible for Stravinsky's long-term popularity as a musical pioneer who pushed musical architecture. In the 1920s he continued his "Russian phase" with neoclassical music. The works from this time used conventional types of music (concerto grosso, fugue, and symphony). The music of earlier masters, including J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky, was also honored.   Stravinsky took serial procedures in the 1950s. His compositions from this time shared characteristics with his earlier work: the rhythmic energy, the building of large melodic ideas from a few cells with two or three notes, and precision in shape, instrumentation, and utterance.