Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorovich (1882-1971)

[Bryn]

Surprised to find the DG "Stravinsky Complete Edition" appears to have been removed from the catalogue. Thought the claim to completeness was spurious (where, for instance, were his late orchestrations of Four Bach Preludes and Fugues) it was a very impressive survey. Let's hope it returns, preferably expanded to something closer to its claim.

[Pulcinella]

I've always been fond of his Requiem Canticles - it was the topic of a presentation of mine at uni. IIRC Stravinsky's use of serialism didn't wholly depart from his previous harmonic practices.

This might be of interest:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stravinskys.../dp/0521602882

Ordered it: might need something to occupy my mind this autumn/winter!
Thanks for the recommendation.

[gurnemanz]

I started to enjoy Stravinsky late 60s as a student as I gradually abandoned pop music and even became bit obsessed with him. I took Russian as a subsid to my German degree and liked it when I could write his name in Cyrillic - Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский. I couldn't afford that many LPs and taped things off the radio reel-to-reel. I remember being hit sideways by the Symphony in Three Movements which acquired in this way and to this day associate with Schoenberg's Survivor from Warsaw which I got to know around the same time. I did get Rite of Spring on the cheap MFP label with Igor Markevitch and a picture of Ayres Rock on the label. The only other LP I had was the most enjoyable Favourite Short Pieces .... great cover picture:



Still got both those and will keep even when other LPs might get ditched.

I went to quite a few Proms in the 70s, including several with staged versions of works such as Mavra, Soldier's Tale, Renard etc.

I think my first CD was a Haitink Twofer of the ballets. Eventually got the large Sony box of the composer's own recordings and various others.

[silvestrione]

Surprised to find the DG "Stravinsky Complete Edition" appears to have been removed from the catalogue. Thought the claim to completeness was spurious (where, for instance, were his late orchestrations of Four Bach Preludes and Fugues) it was a very impressive survey. Let's hope it returns, preferably expanded to something closer to its claim.

Even more impressive I think is the fairly free adaptation he made of Bach's Chorale Variations on 'Von Himmel Hoch', for chorus and orchestra.

A superb performance is available on the Digital Concert Hall of the BPO, conducted by Jurowski

[Richard Barrett]

Even more impressive I think is the fairly free adaptation he made of Bach's Chorale Variations on 'Von Himmel Hoch', for chorus and orchestra.

I don't think many would claim that the WTC arrangements are impressive as such - they were just Stravinsky's means of keeping his musical mind ticking over in the later 1960s after he'd given up on composition.

Having finished the Walsh biography (which comes to a sad and juddering end with all the squabbles over his legacy between various parties, none of whom - including Igor himself - comes out of it looking particularly good), I thought I would go back over some of my musical rediscoveries during the reading process, first off the Requiem Canticles of which I seem to have a score on my shelves, heaven knows where that came from because I don't remember looking at it before. I went through it in the company of Herreweghe and then Knussen, with the latter coming out as much preferable overall. In particular I think PH's choice of alto soloist was a miscalculation.

[Pulcinella]

I don't think many would claim that the WTC arrangements are impressive as such - they were just Stravinsky's means of keeping his musical mind ticking over in the later 1960s after he'd given up on composition.

Having finished the Walsh biography (which comes to a sad and juddering end with all the squabbles over his legacy between various parties, none of whom - including Igor himself - comes out of it looking particularly good), I thought I would go back over some of my musical rediscoveries during the reading process, first off the Requiem Canticles of which I seem to have a score on my shelves, heaven knows where that came from because I don't remember looking at it before. I went through it in the company of Herreweghe and then Knussen, with the latter coming out as much preferable overall. In particular I think PH's choice of alto soloist was a miscalculation.

You probably have the Gielen recording of Requiem Canticles too.
Others currently available are Craft (one in the big Sony box, and another on Naxos) and Jarvi.

[silvestrione]

I don't think many would claim that the WTC arrangements are impressive as such - they were just Stravinsky's means of keeping his musical mind ticking over in the later 1960s after he'd given up on composition.

Indeed. Careless phrasing. All I meant was that the 'Chorale Variations' are impressive (i.e. Stravinskian, Bachian, and thoroughly enjoyable!).

If you do have access to the Digital Concert Hall, that same Jurowski concert has the Requiem Canticles in it as well.

[Bryn]

Even more impressive I think is the fairly free adaptation he made of Bach's Chorale Variations on 'Von Himmel Hoch', for chorus and orchestra.

A superb performance is available on the Digital Concert Hall of the BPO, conducted by Jurowski

Just to clarify, it's the boxed set I was describing as "impressive", not the WTC arrangements. When you consider what Webern did with the Bach Ricercar a 6, Stravinsky's late WTC arrangement pale into insignificance.

[Richard Barrett]

You probably have the Gielen recording of Requiem Canticles too.

Yes I do. I'll be coming back to that later today probably, and also the other late vocal works which I have to admit that until now have all been more or less blurred together in my mind.

[Quarky]

I looked for a Stravinsky thread and didn't find one so I hope I'm not duplicating anything here. As I've posted on other threads, I've been reading Stephen Walsh's biography, and I'm now approaching the end. While SW's insights into the music (necessarily not in very much detail) are pithy and valuable, it's somewhat obvious that he has little sympathy with the twelve-tone composition technique, but however that may be, his book expresses very well what a shock it was to many people when Stravinsky's music made this turn, and how Robert Craft was cast by some as a devilish influence in this regard. Craft is indeed a suspicious individual in some ways, it seems, but on the other hand it's hard to believe that a composer with as imaginative and original a mind as Stravinsky wasn't capable of making up his own mind about what stylistic direction to take, having already made so many turns over the previous decades.

Anyway, one of the results of reading this book has been to raise my appreciation of "late" Stravinsky - I mean from Canticum Sacrum onwards. Previously I didn't have much time at all for this music, which sounded somewhat grey and threadbare to me. No longer though, I'm pleased to say. But I think that this is partly the result of some excellent recent recordings, like Philippe Herreweghe's disc of Threni and Requiem Canticles, and MTT's live Canticum Sacrum from last year.

Not having the energy or will to read the biography, but I'm wondering why Robert Craft was a bad influence. According to the Guardian obituary of Robert Craft, Igor's turn to Serialism was occasioned by the death of his friend Arnie Schoenberg, as much as anything: https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...7/robert-craft

I guess Igor was a multi-dimensional composer, more so than other composers, in the sense of writing ballet scores, and needed collaborators, Craft, Balanchine, particularly in the environment of New York, USA, post-war.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not having the energy or will to read the biography, but I'm wondering why Robert Craft was a bad influence. According to the Guardian obituary of Robert Craft, Igor's turn to Serialism was occasioned by the death of his friend Arnie Schoenberg, as much as anything: https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...7/robert-craft

I guess Igor was a multi-dimensional composer, more so than other composers, in the sense of writing ballet scores, and needed collaborators, Craft, Balanchine, particularly in the environment of New York, USA, post-war.

I am surprised to read of Stravinsky's grief at Schoenberg's death, not having read the Craft. My understanding has been that, aside from the Russian's passing interest in "Pierrot Lunaire" around the time it was composed - which possibly influenced the Japanese Lyrics and, to my mind, coincided with Stravinsky's biggest leaps away from hiw own musical inheritance, the two men had thoroughly parted aesthetic company by the time Schoenberg evolved his 12-tone method, which in any case had never been close; certainly the Austrian expressed his disdain for Igor's Neo-classicism in his own Satires, explicitly, and more subtly in the Op.29's second movement with its jerky rhythms. One understands they passed their exile in Hollywood living not far apart, yet never physically met up, even for tennis!

[Bryn]

I am surprised to read of Stravinsky's grief at Schoenberg's death, not having read the Craft. My understanding has been that, aside from the Russian's passing interest in "Pierrot Lunaire" around the time it was composed - which possibly influenced the Japanese Lyrics and, to my mind, coincided with Stravinsky's biggest leaps away from hiw own musical inheritance, the two men had thoroughly parted aesthetic company by the time Schoenberg evolved his 12-tone method, which in any case had never been close; certainly the Austrian expressed his disdain for Igor's Neo-classicism in his own Satires, explicitly, and more subtly in the Op.29's second movement with its jerky rhythms. One understands they passed their exile in Hollywood living not far apart, yet never physically met up, even for tennis!

Stravinsky on his own violin concerto, "The Violin Concerto was not inspired by or modeled on any example. I do not like the standard violin concertos - not Mozart's, Beethoven's, or Brahms'. To my mind, the only masterpiece in the field is Schoenberg's, and that was written several years after mine . . . "

[Serial_Apologist]

Stravinsky on his own violin concerto, "The Violin Concerto was not inspired by or modeled on any example. I do not like the standard violin concertos - not Mozart's, Beethoven's, or Brahms'. To my mind, the only masterpiece in the field is Schoenberg's, and that was written several years after mine . . . "

Interesting, especially in view of Straivinsky's view that "If I had my way, I would do away with all the development sections in Mozart's and Beethoven's symphonies" - source one of my books, can't presently recall which, apologies!

[Richard Barrett]

I am surprised to read of Stravinsky's grief at Schoenberg's death

Well, it's complicated, let me put it that way, but the story that they had no time for each other's work is a gross simplification, more the result of their respective hangers-on taking sides than of their own feelings in the matter, which, both being highly intelligent artists, were considerably more nuanced.

The main problem with Craft is not that he pushed Stravinsky into writing twelve-tone music, which he didn't, but that he twisted, exaggerated or just fabricated a lot of the stuff that appears in the later "conversations" books and had Stravinsky say things that he never actually said, for which there's little excuse I think, however dedicated to the maestro's worm he may have been.

As for development sections, Stravinsky is quoted by George Antheil as saying that in 1922 about Mozart's symphonies (not Beethoven's) in Eric Walter White's Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (p. 308-09). Can Antheil be trusted? Maybe. But Stravinsky's opinions on many things changed quite radically over his life of course.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, it's complicated, let me put it that way, but the story that they had no time for each other's work is a gross simplification, more the result of their respective hangers-on taking sides than of their own feelings in the matter, which, both being highly intelligent artists, were considerably more nuanced.

The main problem with Craft is not that he pushed Stravinsky into writing twelve-tone music, which he didn't, but that he twisted, exaggerated or just fabricated a lot of the stuff that appears in the later "conversations" books and had Stravinsky say things that he never actually said, for which there's little excuse I think, however dedicated to the maestro's worm he may have been.

As for development sections, Stravinsky is quoted by George Antheil as saying that in 1922 about Mozart's symphonies (not Beethoven's) in Eric Walter White's Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (p. 308-09). Can Antheil be trusted? Maybe. But Stravinsky's opinions on many things changed quite radically over his life of course.

Yes yes, clearly as evidenced in the changes in his music.