While Stravinsky's reputation rests on many masterpieces written throughout his career, his popularity is largely based on three pre-World War I ballets: The Firebird (1910), The Rite of Spring (1911-1913), and Petrushka. To make this latter score more suitable for concert performance, Stravinsky revised it in 1947, reducing its instrumentation, altering some tempos, and making other largely minor changes.

The 1947 version retains the same libretto and opens with lively, festive music to depict the revelry in St. Peterburg's Admiralty Square, as the Shrovetide Fair commences. The piano here and later has a crucial role in the scoring, as do other instruments like the cornet and drums.

Soon an insistent drum roll is played to announce the magician, who presents a puppet show featuring the Moor, the ballerina, and Petrushka. Here the music slowly takes shape, becoming gradually more playful until the lively, fairytale-like Russian Dance begins, wherein the piano and xylophone brilliantly color the musical canvas.

The music in the second scene depicts the action in Petrushka's cell. Again, it is playful, the piano seeming to run away from the other instruments at first, only to incur the wrath of the scolding brass. The mood then swings from the playful to the sassy to depict Petrushka's bitter resentment at his imprisonment.

The third scene begins with another drum roll, but the music then turns subdued and exotic, except for thunderous blasts from the drums. There follow a cornet solo depicting the Ballerina's dance and a colorful waltz, danced by the Ballerina and the Moor. The music here gradually becomes intense and then violent, as the jealous Petrushka provokes a fight.

The final scene opens with a drum roll. The music then turns festive, the action moving to the outside once again. Stravinsky presents one of his most lively themes in the "Dance of the Wet Nurses." Based on a Russian folk tune, this ebullient melody brims with energy and luminescence as rhythms turn into harmonies and the music seems to alternately soar and dive ecstatically. Several other colorful dances follow, but then tragedy comes in "The Scuffle and Death of Petrushka." Here the music is sad, but with echoes of the playfulness heard earlier. The sassy, brassy last number depicts the appearance of "Petrushka's Ghost," a figure who returns to mock the people.

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