He had gained fame by commissioning Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring. And by the outbreak of World War I, Sergei Diaghilev’s talent for cultivating and nurturing great artists in music, visual art and dance had made him the undisputed center of the ballet world.

But the war saw his Ballets Russes scattered to the four corners of the globe, while infighting and professional rivalries began taking their toll, as well.

In this, the second of two parts, how Diaghilev emerged triumphant to inspire and commission a decade of important music from de Falla, Satie, Respighi, Milhaud, Poulenc, Prokofiev—and two more from Stravinsky.