This Week in Classical Music: June 17, 2024. Stravinsky. Is it just us or did the music of Stravinsky lose some of its magic?Not that long ago it seemed that Stravinsky’s place at the very top of the musical Olympus was unshakable – but maybe listeners have had too much of The Rite of Spring and piano transcriptions of Petrushka. That Igor Stravinsky, born on June 17th of 1882 outside of St. Peterburg, was a genius is without a doubt.He had several creative phases: the initial, “Russian” phase, closely linked to Sergei Diaghilev, a great Russian impresario who established himself in Paris.It was during this period and owing to Diaghilev’s commissions that Stravinsky composed his most popular ballets: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913), Les Noces (The Wedding, 1914-17).He made symphonic suites out of The Firebird and The Rite and transcribed parts of Petrushka for the piano; the public knows them better in these incarnations.He also composed two operas, The Nightingale in 1914 and Histoire du soldat in 1918, and, as with the ballets, he then used them to write orchestral pieces, Song of the Nightingale and a chamber suite from the Histoire.This was a remarkably fertile period: his music was unlike anything else ever composed (and therefore, scandalous, which only helped his fame), its harmonies and dissonances, its rhythms, the Russian exoticism – all of it captivated the public.By the end of WWI Stravinsky was acknowledged as one of the greatest living composers.And then, in the early 1920s he completely changed his style, the very nature of his compositions, replacing the wild, in-your-face energy of The Rite of Spring and other Russian-phase compositions with the Apollonian clarity, balance and emotional distance of the ballets Pulcinella, Apollo, and The Fairy's Kiss; the opera Oedipus rex, and several instrumental pieces.Later he wrote three symphonies, Symphony of Psalms (1930), Symphony in C (1940), and Symphony in Three Movements (1945).All three are composed mostly in the “neo-classical” style, though one can hear the younger Stravinsky in all of them.And then he made another turn, this time to the twelve-tone technique of his rival, Schoenberg.That was in the mid-1950s when Stravinsky was already in his 70s.In music, this capacity to reinvent himself is unique but he had a great counterpart in the arts, Pablo Picasso, who also went through many “periods”: Blue, Rose, Cubism, Neoclassical, Surrealist, and so on.For a long time, Picasso was considered the greatest artist of the 20th century, but recently we came across an article that questioned his primacy.Is the same happening to Stravinsky?
Here, from the late neo-classical period, is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements.In this 1985 live recording, Leonard Bernstein leads the Israel Philharmonic.
Stravinsky, 2024
This Week in Classical Music: June 17, 2024. Stravinsky. Is it just us or did the music of Stravinsky lose some of its magic? Not that long ago it seemed that Stravinsky’s place at the very
top of the musical Olympus was unshakable – but maybe listeners have had too much of The Rite of Spring and piano transcriptions of Petrushka. That Igor Stravinsky, born on June 17th of 1882 outside of St. Peterburg, was a genius is without a doubt. He had several creative phases: the initial, “Russian” phase, closely linked to Sergei Diaghilev, a great Russian impresario who established himself in Paris. It was during this period and owing to Diaghilev’s commissions that Stravinsky composed his most popular ballets: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913), Les Noces (The Wedding, 1914-17). He made symphonic suites out of The Firebird and The Rite and transcribed parts of Petrushka for the piano; the public knows them better in these incarnations. He also composed two operas, The Nightingale in 1914 and Histoire du soldat in 1918, and, as with the ballets, he then used them to write orchestral pieces, Song of the Nightingale and a chamber suite from the Histoire. This was a remarkably fertile period: his music was unlike anything else ever composed (and therefore, scandalous, which only helped his fame), its harmonies and dissonances, its rhythms, the Russian exoticism – all of it captivated the public. By the end of WWI Stravinsky was acknowledged as one of the greatest living composers. And then, in the early 1920s he completely changed his style, the very nature of his compositions, replacing the wild, in-your-face energy of The Rite of Spring and other Russian-phase compositions with the Apollonian clarity, balance and emotional distance of the ballets Pulcinella, Apollo, and The Fairy's Kiss; the opera Oedipus rex, and several instrumental pieces. Later he wrote three symphonies, Symphony of Psalms (1930), Symphony in C (1940), and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). All three are composed mostly in the “neo-classical” style, though one can hear the younger Stravinsky in all of them. And then he made another turn, this time to the twelve-tone technique of his rival, Schoenberg. That was in the mid-1950s when Stravinsky was already in his 70s. In music, this capacity to reinvent himself is unique but he had a great counterpart in the arts, Pablo Picasso, who also went through many “periods”: Blue, Rose, Cubism, Neoclassical, Surrealist, and so on. For a long time, Picasso was considered the greatest artist of the 20th century, but recently we came across an article that questioned his primacy. Is the same happening to Stravinsky?
Here, from the late neo-classical period, is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements. In this 1985 live recording, Leonard Bernstein leads the Israel Philharmonic.