Igor Stravinsky

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Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Russian: , Igor' Fjodorovi
Stravinskij) (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 6 April 1971) was a Russian-born composer, considered
by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music.[1] He was a quintessentially
cosmopolitan Russian who was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential
people of the century.[2] In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also
achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works.
Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved
international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and
performed by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets): L'Oiseau de feu ("The Firebird")
(1910), Petrushka (1911/1947), and Le Sacre du printemps ("The Rite of Spring") (1913). The
Rite, whose premiere provoked a riot, transformed the way in which subsequent composers
thought about rhythmic structure, and was largely responsible for Stravinky's enduring reputation
as a musical revolutionary, pushing the boundaries of musical design.
After this first Russian phase Stravinsky turned to neoclassicism in the 1920s. The works from
this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue, symphony),
frequently concealed a vein of intense emotion beneath a surface appearance of detachment or

austerity, and often paid tribute to the music of earlier masters, for example J. S. Bach and
Tchaikovsky.
In the 1950s he adopted serial procedures, using the new techniques over his last twenty years.
Stravinsky's compositions of this period share traits with all of his earlier output: rhythmic
energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells, and
clarity of form, of instrumentation, and of utterance.
He also published a number of books throughout his career, almost always with the aid of a
collaborator, sometimes uncredited. In his 1936 autobiography, Chronicles of My Life, written
with the help of Alexis Roland-Manuel, Stravinsky included his infamous statement that "music
is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all."[3] With Roland-Manuel
and Pierre Souvtchinsky he wrote his 193940 Harvard University Charles Eliot Norton
Lectures, which were delivered in French and later collected under the title Potique musicale in
1942 (translated in 1947 as Poetics of Music).[4] Several interviews in which the composer spoke
to Robert Craft were published as Conversations with Igor Stravinsky.[5] They collaborated on
five further volumes over the following decade.

Contents
[hide] [hide]

1 Biography
o 1.1 Russia
o 1.2 Switzerland
o 1.3 France
o 1.4 America

2 Personality

3 Stylistic periods
o 3.1 'Russian' Period (c.1908-1919)
o 3.2 Neoclassical Period (c.1920-1954)
o 3.3 Serial Period (1954-1968)

4 Innovation and influence

o 4.1 Composition
o 4.2 Rhythm
o 4.3 Neoclassicism
o 4.4 Quotation
o 4.5 Folk material
o 4.6 Orchestra

5 Reception

6 Recordings

7 Notes

8 References

9 Further reading

10 External links
o 10.1 Recordings

[edit] Biography
[edit] Russia
Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum (renamed Lomonosov in 1948), Russia and brought up in
Saint Petersburg, to a Ukrainian father[citation needed] and a Russian mother[citation needed]. His childhood,
he recalled in his autobiography, was troubled: "I never came across anyone who had any real
affection for me."[6] His father, Fyodor Stravinsky, was a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theater in
Saint Petersburg,[7] and the young Stravinsky began piano lessons and later studied music theory
and attempted some composition. In 1890, Stravinsky saw a performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet
The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theater; the performance, his first exposure to an
orchestra, mesmerized him.[8] At fourteen, he had mastered Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G
minor, and the next year, he finished a piano reduction of one of Alexander Glazunov's string
quartets.[9]

Despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to become a lawyer. Stravinsky
enrolled to study law at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, but was ill-suited for it,
attending fewer than fifty class sessions in four years.[10] After the death of his father in 1902, he
had already begun spending more time on his musical studies. Because of the closure of the
university in the spring of 1905, in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, Stravinsky was prevented
from taking his law finals, and received only a half-course diploma, in April 1906.[7] Thereafter,
he concentrated on music. On the advice of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, probably the leading
Russian composer of the time, he decided not to enter the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire;
instead, in 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private tutelage from Rimsky-Korsakov, who
became like a second father to him.[10]
In 1905 he was betrothed to his cousin Katerina Nossenko, whom he had known since early
childhood. They were married on 23 January 1906, and their first two children, Fyodor and
Ludmilla, were born in 1907 and 1908 respectively.
In 1909, his Feu d'artifice (Fireworks), was performed in Saint Petersburg, where it was heard by
Sergei Diaghilev, the director of the Ballets Russes in Paris. Diaghilev was sufficiently
impressed to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations, and then to compose a
full-length ballet score, L'Oiseau de feu ("The Firebird").

[edit] Switzerland

Igor Stravinsky.
Stravinsky travelled to Paris in 1910 to attend the premiere of The Firebird. His family soon
joined him, and decided to remain in the West for a time. He moved to Switzerland, where he
lived until 1920 in Clarens and Lausanne. During this time he composed three further works for
the Ballets RussesPetrushka (1911), written in Lausanne, and Le Sacre du printemps ("The
Rite of Spring") (1913) and Pulcinella, both written in Clarens.

While the Stravinskys were in Switzerland, their second son, Soulima (who later became a minor
composer), was born in 1910; and their second daughter, Maria Milena, was born in 1913.
During this last pregnancy, Katerina was found to have tuberculosis, and she was placed in a
Swiss sanatorium for her confinement. After a brief return to Russia in July 1914 to collect
research materials for Les Noces, Stravinsky left his homeland and returned to Switzerland just
before the outbreak of World War I brought about the closure of the borders. He was not to return
to Russia for nearly fifty years. Stravinsky was one of the few Eastern Orthodox or Russian
Orthodox community representatives living in Switzerland at that time and is still remembered as
such in Switzerland to date.[11]
He had a significant artistic relationship with the Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart. He
approached Reinhart for financial assistance when he was writing Histoire du soldat (The
Soldiers Tale). The first performance was conducted by Ernest Ansermet on 28 September 1918,
at the Theatre Municipal de Lausanne. Werner Reinhart sponsored and to a large degree
underwrote this performance. In gratitude, Stravinsky dedicated the work to Reinhart[12], and
even gave him the original manuscript.[13][14] Reinhart continued his support of Stravinskys work
in 1919 by funding a series of concerts of his recent chamber music.[15] These included a suite of
five numbers from The Soldiers Tale, arranged for clarinet, violin, and piano, which was a nod
to Reinhart, who was an excellent amateur clarinettist.[16][12] The suite was first performed on 8
November 1919, in Lausanne, long before the better-known suite for the seven original
instruments became widely known.[17] In gratitude for Reinharts ongoing support, Stravinsky
dedicated his Three Pieces for Clarinet (composed October-November 1918) to Reinhart.[18][12]
Reinhart later founded a music library of Stravinskiana at his home in Winterthur.[19]

[edit] France
Stravinsky moved to France in 1920, where he formed a business and musical relationship with
the French piano manufacturer Pleyel. Pleyel essentially acted as his agent in collecting
mechanical royalties for his works, and in return provided him with a monthly income and a
studio space in which to work and to entertain friends and business acquaintances.
Stravinsky also arranged (and to some extent re-composed) many of his early works for the
Pleyela, Pleyel's brand of player piano. Stravinsky did so in a way that made full use of the
piano's 88 notes, without regard for the number or span of human fingers and hands. These were
not recorded rolls, but were instead marked up from a combination of manuscript fragments and
handwritten notes by the French musician, Jacques Larmanjat (musical director of Pleyel's roll
department). Stravinsky later claimed that his intention had been to give listeners a definitive
version of the performances of his music, but since the rolls were not recordings, it is difficult to
see how effective this intention could have been in practice. While many of these works are now
part of the standard repertoire, at the time many orchestras found his music beyond their
capabilities and unfathomable. Major compositions issued on Pleyela piano rolls include The
Rite of Spring, Petrushka, Firebird, Les Noces and Song of the Nightingale. During the 1920s he
also recorded Duo-Art rolls for the Aeolian Company in both London and New York, not all of
which survive.[20]

After a short stay near Paris, Stravinsky moved with his family to the south of France. He
returned to Paris in 1934, to live at the rue Faubourg-St.Honor. Stravinsky later remembered
this as his last and unhappiest European address; his wife's tuberculosis infected his eldest
daughter Ludmila, and Stravinsky himself. Ludmila died in 1938, Katerina in the following year.
Stravinsky spent five months in hospital, during which time his mother also died.
Although his marriage to Katerina endured for 33 years, the true love of his life, and later his
partner until his death, was the woman who became his second wife Vera de Bosset (1888-1982).
When Stravinsky met Vera in Paris in February 1921, she was married to the painter and stage
designer Serge Sudeikin, however they soon began an affair which led to her leaving her
husband. From then until Katerina's death from cancer in 1939, Stravinsky led a double life,
spending some of his time with his first family and the rest with Vera. Katerina soon learned of
the relationship and accepted it as inevitable and permanent.
During his latter years in Paris, Stravinsky had developed professional relationships with key
people in the United States; he was already working on the Symphony in C for the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, and had agreed to lecture at Harvard during the academic year of 1939-40.
When World War II broke out in September 1939, Stravinsky moved to the United States. Vera
followed him early in the next year and they were married in Bedford, MA, USA, on 9 March
1940.

[edit] America
Stravinsky settled down in the Los Angeles area (1260 North Wetherly Drive, West Hollywood)
[21]
where, in the end, he spent more time as a resident than any other city during his lifetime.[22]
He became a naturalized citizen in 1946. Stravinsky had adapted to life in France, but moving to
America at the age of 58 was a very different prospect. For a time, he preserved a ring of emigr
Russian friends and contacts, but eventually found that this did not sustain his intellectual and
professional life. He was drawn to the growing cultural life of Los Angeles, especially during
World War II, when so many writers, musicians, composers, and conductors settled in the area;
these included Otto Klemperer, Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, George Balanchine and Arthur
Rubinstein. He lived fairly near to Arnold Schoenberg, though he did not have a close
relationship with him. Bernard Holland notes that he was especially fond of British writers who
often visited him in Beverly Hills, "like W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Dylan Thomas
(who shared the composer's taste for hard spirits) and, especially, Aldous Huxley, with whom
Stravinsky spoke in French."[23] He settled into life in Los Angeles and sometimes conducted
concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the famous Hollywood Bowl as well as
throughout the U.S. When he planned to write an opera with W. H. Auden, the need to acquire
more familiarity with the English-speaking world[citation needed] coincided with his meeting the
conductor and musicologist Robert Craft. Craft lived with Stravinsky until the composer's death,
acting as interpreter, chronicler, assistant conductor, and factotum for countless musical and
social tasks.
On April 15, 1940[24], Stravinsky's unconventional major seventh chord in his arrangement of the
Star-Spangled Banner led to his arrest by the Boston police for violating a federal law that
prohibited the reharmonization of the National Anthem. [25]

In 1959, Stravinsky was awarded the Sonning Award, Denmark's highest musical honour. In
1962, he accepted an invitation to return to Leningrad (today known as Saint Petersburg) for a
series of concerts. He spent more than two hours speaking with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev,
who urged him to return to the Soviet Union.[citation needed] Despite the invitation, Stravinsky
remained settled in the West.

Grave of Stravinsky in San Michele

In 1969, he moved to New York where he lived his last years at Essex House. Two years later, he
died at the age of 88 in New York City and was buried in Venice on the cemetery island of San
Michele. His grave is close to the tomb of his long-time collaborator Sergei Diaghilev.
Stravinsky's professional life had encompassed most of the 20th century, including many of its
modern classical music styles, and he influenced composers both during and after his lifetime.
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard and posthumously
received the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987.

[edit] Personality
Stravinsky displayed an inexhaustible desire to explore and learn about art, literature, and life.
This desire manifested itself in several of his Paris collaborations. Not only was he the principal
composer for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, but he also collaborated with Pablo Picasso
(Pulcinella, 1920), Jean Cocteau (Oedipus Rex, 1927) and George Balanchine (Apollon
musagte, 1928). His taste in literature was wide, and reflected his constant desire for new
discoveries. The texts and literary sources for his work began with a period of interest in Russian
folklore, progressed to classical authors and the Latin liturgy, and moved on to contemporary
France (Andr Gide, in Persephone) and eventually English literature, including Auden, T. S.
Eliot and medieval English verse. At the end of his life, he set Hebrew scripture in Abraham and
Isaac.

Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to
make several sketches of the composer.
Patronage was never far away. In the early 1920s, Leopold Stokowski gave Stravinsky regular
support through a pseudonymous "benefactor".[citation needed] The composer was also able to attract
commissions: most of his work from The Firebird onwards was written for specific occasions
and was paid for generously.
Stravinsky proved adept at playing the part of "man of the world", acquiring a keen instinct for
business matters and appearing relaxed and comfortable in many of the world's major cities.
Paris, Venice, Berlin, London, Amsterdam and New York City all hosted successful appearances
as pianist and conductor. Most people who knew him through dealings connected with
performances spoke of him as polite, courteous and helpful. For example, Otto Klemperer, who
knew Arnold Schoenberg well, said that he always found Stravinsky much more co-operative
and easy to deal with.[citation needed] At the same time, he had a marked disregard for those he
perceived to be his social inferiors: Robert Craft was embarrassed by his habit of tapping a glass
with a fork and loudly demanding attention in restaurants.[citation needed]
Although a notorious philanderer (who was rumoured to have affairs with high-profile partners
such as Coco Chanel[citation needed]), Stravinsky was also a family man who devoted considerable
amounts of his time and expenditure to his sons and daughters.
Stravinsky was also a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church all throughout his life,
remarking at one time, "Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the
building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament." [26]

[edit] Stylistic periods

See also: List of compositions by Igor Stravinsky
Stravinsky's career may be divided roughly into three stylistic periods.

[edit] 'Russian' Period (c.1908-1919)

The first period (excluding some early minor works) began with Feu d'artifice and achieved
prominence with the three ballets composed for Diaghilev. These three works have several
characteristics in common: they are scored for an extremely large orchestra; they use Russian
folk themes and motifs; and they are influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov's imaginative scoring and
instrumentation. They also exhibit considerable stylistic development: from the L'oiseau de feu,
which emphasizes certain tendencies in Rimsky-Korsakov and features pandiatonicism
conspicuously in the third movement, to the use of polytonality in Petrushka, and the
intentionally brutal polyrhythms and dissonances of Le Sacre du printemps.
The first of the ballets, L'Oiseau de feu, is noted for its imaginative orchestration, evident at the
outset from the introduction in 12/8 meter, which exploits the low register of the double bass.
Petrushka, the first of Stravinsky's ballets to draw on folk mythology, is also distinctively scored.
In the third ballet, The Rite of Spring, the composer attempted to depict musically the brutality of
pagan Russia, which inspired the violent motifs that recur throughout the work. To this day its
vision of pagan rituals, enacted in an imaginary ancient Russia continues to dazzle and
overwhelm audiences. Once again, Stravinsky's originality is evident: the opening theme, played
on a bassoon at the very top of its register, has become one of the most famous passages in
Western art music, as has the pulsing syncopated eighth-note motif in the strings, its accents
marked by horn.[citation needed]
If Stravinsky's stated intention was "to send them all to hell",[27] then he may have rated the 1913
premiere of Le sacre du printemps as a success: it is among the most famous classical music
riots, and Stravinsky referred to it frequently as a "scandale" in his autobiography.[28] There were
reports of fistfights among the audience, and the need for a police presence during the second
act. The real extent of the tumult, however, is open to debate, and these reports may be
apocryphal.[29]
Stravinsky later commented about the premire of The Rite: "As for the actual performance, I am
not in a position to judge, as I left the auditorium at the first bars of the prelude, which had at
once evoked derisive laughter. I was disgusted. These demonstrations, at first isolated, soon
became general, provoking counter-demonstrations and very quickly developing into a terrific
uproar. During the whole performance I was at Nijinsky's side in the wings. He was standing on
a chair, screaming 'Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen'--they had their own method of counting to keep
time. Naturally the poor dancers could hear nothing by reason of the row in the auditorium and
the sound of their own dance-steps. I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothes, for he was furious, and
ready to dash on to the stage at any moment and create a scandal. Diaghilev kept ordering the
electricians to turn the lights on or off, hoping in that way to put a stop to the noise. That is all I
can remember about that first performance."[30]
Other pieces from this period include: Le Rossignol (The Nightingale); Renard (1916); Histoire
du soldat (The Soldier's Tale) (1918); and Les Noces (The Wedding) (1923).

[edit] Neoclassical Period (c.1920-1954)

The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style extended from roughly 1920 to about 1954,
when he began using serial techniques. Pulcinella (1920) and the Octet (1923) for wind

instruments are Stravinsky's first compositions to feature his re-examination of the classical
music of Mozart and Bach and their contemporaries. For this "neo-classical" style Stravinsky
abandoned the large orchestras demanded by the ballets, and turned instead largely to wind
instruments, the piano, and choral and chamber works.
Other works such as Oedipus Rex (1927), Apollon musagte (1928, for the Russian Ballet) and
the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto (193738) continued this re-thinking of eighteenth-century
musical styles.
Works from this period include the three symphonies: the Symphonie des Psaumes (Symphony of
Psalms) (1930), Symphony in C (1940) and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). Apollon,
Persephone (1933) and Orpheus (1947) exemplify not only Stravinsky's return to music of the
Classical period, but also his exploration of themes from the ancient Classical world such as
Greek mythology.
Stravinsky completed his last neo-classical work, the opera The Rake's Progress, in 1951, to a
libretto by W. H. Auden based on the etchings of Hogarth. It was almost ignored[citation needed] after it
was staged by the Metropolitan Opera in 1953. It was presented by the Santa Fe Opera in its first
season in 1957 with Stravinsky in attendance, and this marked the beginning of his long
association with the company. The music is direct but quirky; it borrows from classic tonal
harmony but also interjects surprising dissonances; it features Stravinsky's trademark offrhythms; and it harks back to the operas and themes of Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart. The
opera was revived by the Metropolitan Opera in 1997.

[edit] Serial Period (1954-1968)

Stravinsky began using serial compositional techniques, including dodecaphony, the twelve-tone
technique originally devised by Arnold Schoenberg, in the early 1950s (after Schoenberg's
death). Robert Craft encouraged this undertaking.[31]
He first experimented with non-twelve-tone serial technique in small-scale vocal and chamber
works such as the Cantata (1952), Septet (1953), and Three Songs from Shakespeare (1953), and
his first composition to be fully based on these non-twelve-tone serial techniques is In
Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954). Agon (195457) is his first work to include a twelve-tone
series, and Canticum Sacrum (1955) is his first piece to contain a movement entirely based on a
tone row ("Surge, aquilo").[32] Stravinsky later expanded his use of dodecaphony in works
including Threni (1958), A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer (1961), and The Flood (1962),
which are based on biblical texts.
Agon, written from 1954 to 1957, is a ballet choreographed for twelve dancers. It is an important
transitional composition between Stravinsky's neo-classical period and his serial style. Some
numbers of Agon are reminiscent of the "white-note" tonality of his neo-classic period, while
others (for example Bransle Gay) display his re-interpretation of serial methods.

[edit] Innovation and influence

Endre Rozsda: Hommage Stravinsky (1976)

"One of music's truly epochal innovators"[33], the most important aspect of Stravinsky's work
aside from his technical innovations, including in rhythm and harmony, is the, "changing face,"
of his compositional style while always "retaining a distinctive, essential identity"[33]. He himself
was inspired by different cultures, languages and literatures. As a consequence, his influence on
composers both during his lifetime and after his death was, and remains, considerable. "No other
composer of the twentieth century exerted such a pervasive influence or dominated his art in the
way that Stravinsky did during his five-decade musical career"[33].

[edit] Composition
Stravinsky's use of motivic development (the use of musical figures that are repeated in different
guises throughout a composition or section of a composition) included additive motivic
development. This is where notes are subtracted or added to a motif without regard to the
consequent changes in meter. A similar technique may be found as early as the sixteenth century,
for example in the music of Cipriano de Rore, Orlandus Lassus, Carlo Gesualdo, and Giovanni
de Macque, music with which Stravinsky exhibited considerable familiarity.[34]
The Rite of Spring is also notable for its relentless use of ostinati; for example, in the eighth note
ostinato on strings accented by eight horns in the section Auguries of Spring (Dances of the
Young Girls). The work also contains passages where several ostinati clash against one another.

[edit] Rhythm
Stravinsky was noted for his distinctive use of rhythm, especially in The Rite of Spring.[35]
According to Philip Glass:[36]
the idea of pushing the rhythms across the bar lines [...] led the way [...] the rhythmic structure of
music became much more fluid and in a certain way spontaneous
Glass also praises Stravinsky's "primitive, offbeat rhythmic drive".[37]
According to Andrew J. Browne, "Stravinsky is perhaps the only composer who has raised
rhythm in itself to the dignity of art."[38]

Stravinsky's rhythm and vitality greatly influenced composer Aaron Copland.[39]

[edit] Neoclassicism
Stravinsky's first neo-classical works were the ballet Pulcinella of 1920, and the stripped-down
and delicately scored Octet for winds of 1923. Stravinsky may have been preceded in his use of
neoclassical devices by earlier composers such as Erik Satie. By the late 1920s and 1930s, the
use by composers of neoclassicism had become widespread.

[edit] Quotation
Stravinsky continued a long tradition, stretching back at least to the fifteenth century in the form
of the quodlibet and parody mass, by composing pieces which elaborate on individual works by
earlier composers. An early example of this is his Pulcinella of 1920, in which he used music
which at the time was attributed to Giovanni Pergolesi as source material, at times quoting it
directly and at other times reinventing it. He developed the technique further in the ballet The
Fairy's Kiss of 1928, based on the musicmostly piano piecesof Tchaikovsky. Later
examples of comparable musical transformations include Stravinsky's use of Schubert in Circus
Polka (1942) and Happy Birthday to You in Greeting Prelude (1955).

[edit] Folk material

In Le Sacre du Printemps Stravinsky stripped folk themes to their most basic melodic outlines,
and often contorted them beyond recognition with added notes, and other techniques including
inversion and diminution. Only in recent scholarship, such as described in Richard Taruskin's
Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions,[citation needed] have analysts uncovered the original source
material for some of the music in The Rite.

[edit] Orchestra
Like many of the late romantic composers, Stravinsky often called for huge orchestral forces,
especially in the early ballets. His first breakthrough The Firebird proved him the equal of
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and lit the "fuse under the instrumental make up of the 19th century
orchestra". In The Firebird he took the orchestra apart and analyzed it.[40] The Rite of Spring on
the other hand has been characterized by Aaron Copland as the foremost orchestral achievement
in 20th century.[41]
Stravinsky also wrote for unique combinations of instruments in smaller ensembles, chosen for
their precise tone colours. For example, Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale) is scored for
clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, violin, double bass and percussion, a strikingly unusual
combination for 1918.
Stravinsky occasionally exploited the extreme ranges of instruments, most famously at the
opening of the Rite of Spring where Stravinsky uses the extreme upper reaches of the bassoon to
simulate the symbolic "awakening" of a spring morning.

[edit] Reception
Erik Satie wrote an article about Igor Stravinsky that was published in Vanity Fair (1922). Satie
had met Stravinsky for the first time in 1910. Satie's attitude towards the Russian composer is
marked by deference, as can be seen from the letters he wrote him in 1922, preparing for the
Vanity Fair article. With a touch of irony, he concluded one of these letters "I admire you: are
you not the Great Stravinsky? I am but little Erik Satie." In the published article, Satie argued
that measuring the "greatness" of an artist by comparing him to other artists, as if speaking about
some "truth", is illusory: every piece of music should be judged on its own merits, not by
comparing it to the standards of other composers. That was exactly what Jean Cocteau had done,
when commenting deprecatingly on Stravinsky in his 1918 book Le Coq et l'Arlequin.[42]
According to the Musical Times in 1923:
All the signs indicate a strong reaction against the nightmare of noise and eccentricity that was
one of the legacies of the war.... What has become of the works that made up the program of the
Stravinsky concert which created such a stir a few years ago? Practically the whole lot are
already on the shelf, and they will remain there until a few jaded neurotics once more feel a
desire to eat ashes and fill their belly with the east wind.[43]
In 1935, American composer Marc Blitzstein compared Stravinsky to Jacopo Peri and C. P. E.
Bach, conceding that "There is no denying the greatness of Stravinsky. It is just that he is not
great enough".[44] Blitzstein's Marxist position is that Stravinsky's wish was to "divorce music
from other streams of life," which is "symptomatic of an escape from reality", resulting in a "loss
of stamina his new works show", naming specifically Apollo, the Capriccio, and Le Baiser de la
fe.[45]
Composer Constant Lambert described pieces such as Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale) as
containing "essentially cold-blooded abstraction".[46] Lambert continued, "melodic fragments in
Histoire du Soldat are completely meaningless themselves. They are merely successions of notes
that can conveniently be divided into groups of three, five, and seven and set against other
mathematical groups", and he described the cadenza for solo drums as "musical purity...achieved
by a species of musical castration". He compared Stravinsky's choice of "the drabbest and least
significant phrases" to Gertrude Stein's: "Everyday they were gay there, they were regularly gay
there everyday" ("Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene", 1922), "whose effect would be equally
appreciated by someone with no knowledge of English whatsoever".[47]
In his book Philosophy of Modern Music (1949), Theodor Adorno called Stravinsky an acrobat, a
civil servant, a tailor's dummy, hebephrenic, psychotic, infantile, fascist, and devoted to making
money.[cite this quote] Part of the composer's error, in Adorno's view, was his neo-classicism,[48] but
more important was his music's "pseudomorphism of painting," playing off le temps espace
(time-space) rather than le temps dure (time-duration) of Henri Bergson.[49] "One trick
characterizes all of Stravinsky's formal endeavors: the effort of his music to portray time as in a
circus tableau and to present time complexes as though they were spatial. This trick, however,
soon exhausts itself."[50] His "rhythmic procedures closely resemble the schema of catatonic

conditions. In certain schizophrenics, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes
independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego."[51]
Stravinsky's reception in Russia and the USSR went back and forth. Performances of his music
stopped from around 1933 until the early 1960s, at which point the official position became that
one must appreciate Stravinsky[52].
According to Paul Griffith's The Rake's Progress "gives justification in terms of human
psychology, and of the realities of the world, for that obsessional need to repeat and return"[53].
While Stravinsky's music has been criticized for its range of styles scholars had, "gradually
begun to perceive unifying elements in Stravinsky's music," by the 1980s including a,
"'seriousness' of 'tone' or of 'purpose'"[54].

[edit] Recordings
3 Pieces for Clarinet Alone

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Igor Stravinsky found recordings a practical and useful tool in preserving his own thoughts on
the interpretation of his music. As a conductor of his own music, he recorded primarily for
Columbia Records, beginning in 1928 with a performance of the original suite from The Firebird
and concluding in 1967 with the 1945 suite from the same ballet. In the late 1940s, he made
several recordings for RCA Victor at the Republic Studios in Los Angeles. Although most of his
recordings were made with studio musicians, he also worked with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the CBC Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
During his lifetime, Stravinsky appeared on several telecasts, including the world premiere of
The Flood on CBS television.[citation needed] Numerous films and videos of the composer have been
preserved. His associate Robert Craft participated in a documentary, released on home video,
which featured extensive clips of the composer.[citation needed]

[edit] Notes
1. ^ Page 2006; Robinson 2004; Anonymous 1940; Thodore and Denise Strawinsky 2004,
166; Cohen 2004, 30.
2. ^ Glass 1998[1].
3. ^ Stravinsky 1936, 91-92.

4. ^ The names of uncredited collaborators are given in Walsh (2001).

5. ^ Stravinsky and Craft 1959.
6. ^ Stravinsky 1936, quoted in Dubal 2001, 564
7. ^ a b Walsh 2001.
8. ^ Dubal, 564.
9. ^ Glazunov, though, thought little of the young Stravinsky's composition skills, calling
him unmusical (Dubal 2001, 564).
10. ^ a b Dubal 2001, 565.
11. ^ Orthodox Church in Switzerland
12. ^ a b c Ragtime Ensemble presents The Soldiers Tale
13. ^ Concert atists guild
14. ^ The composer, the antiquarian and the go-between
15. ^ Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
16. ^ LHistoire du Soldat
17. ^ A Musical Feast
18. ^ naxos
19. ^ Kuko.com
20. ^ Lawson 1986, and Stravinsky and the Pianola, under External Links.
21. ^ June 3, 1957, The Daily Mirror, Stravinsky turns 75
22. ^ Bernard Holland (11 March 2001). "Stravinsky, a Rare Bird Amid the Palms; A
Composer in California, At Ease if Not at Home". The New York Times.
23. ^ Holland 2001
24. ^ April 15, 1940, Stravinsky's Boston Police mugshot.
25. ^ September 3, 2006, Post Classic, Stravinsky captured in words.

26. ^ Stravinsky's quotations.

27. ^ Wenborn 1985, 17, alludes to this comment, without giving a specific source.
28. ^ Stravinsky 1936[citation needed]
29. ^ See Eksteins 1989, 1016, for an overview of contradictory reportage of the event by
participants and the press.
30. ^ Stravinsky 1936,[citation needed] cited in Siegmeister 1943,[citation needed])
31. ^ NPR show, under External links
32. ^ Straus 2001, 4.
33. ^ a b c AMG (2008). "Igor Stravinsky" biography, AllMusic.
34. ^ Stravinsky and Craft 1960, 11617.
35. ^ The Primitive Pulse of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' : NPR Music
36. ^ Simeone, Craft, and Glass [n.d.] (External links, below).
37. ^ Time Magazine Profile, under External links
38. ^ Browne 1930, 360
39. ^ BBC Radio 3 programme, "Discovering Music" near 33:30
40. ^ Hazlewood n.d. (External links, below).
41. ^ Copland 1952, 37
42. ^ Volta, Ornella. Satie seen through his letters. London : Boyars, 1989, ISBN 0-71452980-X, first pages of chapter on contemporaries.
43. ^ Musical Times. London, October 1923. Quoted in: Slonimsky, 1953[cite this quote]
44. ^ Blitzstein 1935, 330.
45. ^ Blitzstein 1935, 34647.
46. ^ Lambert 1936, 94.
47. ^ Lambert 1936, 101105.

48. ^ Adorno 1973, 2069.

49. ^ Adorno 1973, 19193.
50. ^ Adorno 1973, 195.
51. ^ Adorno 1973, 178.
52. ^ Review: "Searching for Stravinskii's Essence", p.282. Author(s): Simon Karlinsky.
Source: Russian Review, Vol. 44, No. 3, (Jul., 1985), pp. 281-287. Published by:
Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian
Review.
53. ^ Griffith, Paul (1982). Igor Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress. ISBN 0521281997. Quoted
in Pasler (1983), p.608.
54. ^ Review: "Stravinsky and His Craft: Trends in Stravinsky Criticism and Research",
p.608. Author(s): Jann Pasler. Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 124, No. 1688, Russian
Music, (Oct., 1983), pp. 605-609. Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.

[edit] References

Adorno, Theodor. 1973. Philosophy of Modern Music. Translated by Anne G. Mitchell

and Wesley V. Blomster. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-0138-4 Original German
edition, as Philosophie der neuen Musik. Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1949.

Anonymous. 1940. "Musical Count". Time Magazine (Monday, March 11).

Berry, David Carson. 2006. "Stravinsky, Igor." Europe 1789 to 1914: Encyclopedia of the
Age of Industry and Empire, editors-in-chief John Merriman and Jay Winter, 4:226163.
Detroit: Charles Scribners Sons.

Berry, David Carson. 2008. "The Roles of Invariance and Analogy in the Linear Design
of Stravinsky's 'Musick to Heare.'" Gamut 1/1. Accessible at [2].

Blitzstein, Marc. 1935. "The Phenomenon of Stravinsky". Musical Quarterly 21, no. 3
(July): 33047. Reprinted 1991, Musical Quarterly 75, no. 4 (Winter): 51-69.

Browne, Andrew J. 1930. "Aspects of Stravinsky's Work". Music & Letters 11, no. 4
(October): 36066. Online link accessed 2007-11-19 (subscription access)

Cocteau, Jean. 1918. Le Coq et l'arlequin: notes de la musique. Paris: ditions de la

Sirne. Reprinted 1979, with a preface by Georges Auric. Paris: Stock. ISBN
2234010810 English edition, as Cock and Harlequin: Notes Concerning Music, translated
by Rollo H. Myers, London: Egoist Press, 1921.

Cohen, Allen. 2004. Howard Hanson in Theory and Practice. Westport, Conn.: Praeger
Publishers. ISBN 0-313-32135-3

Copland, Aaron. 1952. Music and Imagination. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard

University Press.

Craft, Robert. 1993. Stravinsky: Glimpses of a Life, St Martins Press.

Craft, Robert. 1997. Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship. Vanderbilt University Press.

Dubal, David. 2001. The Essential Canon of Classical Music. New York: North Point
Press.

Eksteins, Modris. 1989. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Modern Era. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-49856-2 (Reprinted 1990, New York: Anchor
Books ISBN 0-385-41202-9; reprinted 2000, Boston: Mariner Books ISBN 0-395-937582)

Glass, Philip. 1998. Igor Stravinsky Time (Monday, 8 June).

Greene, David Mason (1985). Biographical Encyclopaedia of Composers. New York:

Doubleday.

Holland , Bernard. 2001. "Stravinsky, a Rare Bird Amid the Palms: A Composer in
California, at Ease if Not at Home", The New York Times (11 March).

Lambert, Constant. 1936. Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons.

Lawson, Rex. 1986. Stravinsky and the Pianola, in Confronting Stravinsky, ed. Pasler.
Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05403-2.

Page, Tim. 2006. "Classical Music: Great Composers, a Less-Than-Great Poser and an
Operatic Impresario". Washington Post (Sunday, 30 July): BW13.

Robinson, Lisa. 2004. "Opera Double Bill Offers Insight into Stravinsky's Evolution".
The Juilliard Journal Online 19, no. 7 (April). (No longer accessible as of March 2008.)

Siegmeister, Elie (ed.). 1943. The Music Lover's Handbook. New York:William Morrow
and Company.

Slonimsky, Nicolas. 1953. Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers

Since Beethoven's Time. New York: Coleman-Ross. Second edition, New York: ColemanRoss, 1965, reprinted Washington Paperbacks WP-52, Seattle: University of Washington

Press, 1969, reprinted again Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974 ISBN 0-29578579-9, and New York: Norton, 2000 ISBN 039332009X (pbk).

Straus, Joseph N. 2001. Stravinsky's Late Music. Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and
Analysis 16. Cambridge, New York, Port Melbourne, Madrid, and Cape Town:
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80220-2 (cloth) ISBN 0-521-60288-2 (pbk)

Stravinsky, Igor. 1936. Chronicle of My Life. London: Gollancz. Reprinted as An

Autobiography (1903-1934). London: Marion Boyars, 1990. ISBN 0-714-51082-3.
Reprinted, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998. ISBN 0-393-31856-7.

Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. 1959. Conversations with Igor Stravinsky. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday. OCLC 896750 Reprinted Berkeley: University of California Press,
1980. ISBN 0520040406

Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. 1962. Expositions and Developments. London: Faber
& Faber.

Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. 1960. Memories and Commentaries. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday. Reprinted 1981, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press. ISBN 0-520-04402-9 Reprinted 2002, London: Faber and Faber. ISBN
0571212425

Strawinsky, Thodore, and Denise Strawinsky. 2004. Catherine and Igor Stravinsky: A
Family Chronicle 19061940. New York: Schirmer Trade Books; London: Schirmer
Books. ISBN 0825672902

Taruskin, Richard. 1996. Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the
Works Through Mavra. Two vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-52007099-2

Volta, Ornella. 1989. Satie Seen through His Letters. London: Boyars. ISBN 0-71452980-X.

Walsh, Stephen. 2000. Stravinsky. A Creative Spring: Russia and France 1882-1934.
London: Jonathan Cape.

Walsh, Stephen. 2001. "Stravinsky, Igor." New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
2nd edition. London: MacMillian.

Wenborn, Neil. 1985. Stravinsky. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0711976511.

Zappa, Frank, and Peter Occhiogrosso. 1989. The Real Frank Zappa Book. New York:
Poseidon Press. ISBN 067163870X (reprinted twice in 1990, New York: Fireside Books,
ISBN 0671705725 and New York: Picador Books ISBN 0330316257)

[edit] Further reading

Cross, Jonathan (1999). The Stravinsky Legacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 9780521563659.

Joseph, Charles M. (2001). Stravinsky Inside Out. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN 0300075375.

Joseph, Charles M. (2002). Stravinsky and Balanchine, A Journey of Invention. New

Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08712-8.

Kohl, Jerome (197980). "Exposition in Stravinsky's Orchestral Variations". Perspectives

of New Music 18 (1/2): 391405. doi:10.2307/832991. http://links.jstor.org/sici?
sici=0031-6016(197923%2F198022)18%3A1%2F2%3C391%3AEISOV%3E2.0.CO
%3B2-5. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.(subscription access)

Kundera, Milan; Asher, Linda (translator) (1995). Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine
Parts. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060171456.

Kuster, Andrew T. (2005). Stravinsky's Topology (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder D.M.A.

Dissertation ed.). Morrisville, NC: Lulu.com. ISBN 1411664582.

Stravinsky, Igor (1947). Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press. OCLC 155726113.

White, Eric Walter (1979). Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (Second edition
ed.). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0520039831.

[edit] External links

Find more about Igor Stravinsky on Wikipedia's sister projects:
Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity

Glass, Philip. 1999. "Igor Stravinsky" (Time Magazine profile)

NY Times obituary by Donal Henahan, April 7, 1971

Hazlewood, Charles. [n.d.] Discovering Music - The Firebird

Stravinsky and the Pianola

Multimedia Web Site Keeping Score: Revolutions in Music: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring

Stravinsky A to Z

Simeone, Lisa, with Robert Craft and Philip Glass. Milestones of the Millennium (NPR
show)

van den Toorn, Pieter C. 1987. Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring

An audio recording of Stravinsky rehearsing his Symphonies of Wind Instruments in

Memory of Debussy in Los Angeles, 1947

Stravinsky conducting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1961 (film)

Stravinsky Podcast Series by Sony BMG Masterworks

Free scores by Igor Stravinsky in the International Music Score Library Project

[edit] Recordings

Piano works performed by Alberto Cobo:

o Three Movements from Petrushka
o Sonata in F-sharp minor
o Sonata (1924)
o Tango

Piano works performed by Felipe Martins:

o Le Sacre Du Printemps Arr. for Piano Solo by Sam Raphling

Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet, performed by Ted Gurch, clarinet:

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

Les Noces performed on pianola by Rex Lawson

o The Virtuoso Pianolist