Customer Reviews:
This is a "must have" book for composers and theorists alike.......1999-09-23
MODAL AND TONAL COUNTERPOINT from Josquin to Stravinsky, by Harold Owen, is an absolutely terrific publication that creates a wonderful "hands-on" approach to this seemingly mysterious art form which, from this composer's perspective, remains an essential part of any musicians development. It is a beautifully arranged study, compact, but amply supplied with intriguing assignments and wonderful examples from the masters, including a number of the author's own.
A superb overview for undergraduate and graduate students alike, it effectively connects the "modern" musician to the very roots of our art. Serious composers, theorists, and performers, should not miss this one!
A refreshing and creative approach to teaching counterpoint........1999-09-23
"Modal and Tonal Counterpoint" by Harold Owen is a book that all teachers of counterpoint, theory, and composition, should have at their disposal. The book is unique in covering counterpoint from the 16th to the 20th century. I teach at a four-year college, and I often pull the book out during composition lessons to demonstrate a variety of things: species counterpoint, 18th century counterpoint, serial technique and stylistic traits of Stravinsky, Bartók, and Hindemith. I particularly enjoy the way each chapter begins with (often complete) musical examples followed by a discussion of the examples and their relevancy to the chapter topic. I do have to admit a bias -- I studied composition and counterpoint with Hal at the University of Oregon, so I have a personal connection to the material. Hal is a fantastic teacher, a consummate musician versed in many styles, and a very practical and down to earth person. This book reflects all of those traits, especially his practical approach to teaching counterpoint. I highly recommend this book!
This is really a terrific book........1999-05-11
I teach at a small liberal arts college, and I used this book for the first time last year. I had more success with it than with any other counterpoint text I've ever used. The basic plan, which is to show real music, disucss the salient features, and then to draw from them the issues one needs to proceed to writing, is an old and simple one, but sadly, seldom executed well. In this case, though, the examples are wonderful, the discussions clear and insightful, and the exercises well conceived, both for beginners and advanced students. A real plus is that it is the only book I have ever encountered or heard about that discusses counterpoint in the 16th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. I used it as a one-semester text, and was forced to leave some things out. I was pleased, though, for my students to have this material in their libraries for future reference. It would make a fabulous full-year text as well.
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Stravinsky Rite of Spr
Voyager Company
Manufacturer: Voyager
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: 1559404493 |
Book Description
A reprint of the original full-score edition of the most famous musical work of the 20th century, created as a ballet score for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
Customer Reviews:
Great Cheap Score.......2007-06-29
If you are enthralled with the Rite's rhythm, harmony, or whatever... this is the perfect opportunity to see the orchestration and metric usage. As someone who loves the Rite, and analyzing music, this was a no brainer. Cheap and easy to read. Absolutely fantastic.
Well Worth The Money!.......2006-01-17
From Jordan in Minnesota
In 1998 I bought the original score of Le Sacre du Printemps from Kalmus for 65.00 dollars!! Although the Kalmus version in cited from numerous musicians and stravinsky himself, this version of dovers is well worth the 10 dollars!! It is pretty much the same as Kalmus' but it has no chief editor, and since its a reprint it will have the same concept as the Kalmus score, only it is 55.00 dollars cheaper. If anyone wants the 4 extra pages of the kalmus version that compares the scores, I would be happy to copy it and send them, as long as people realize that the Kalmus version as of January 16 2006 is almost 100.00. So stick with this dover version it will definately save you the money!!
cojo0502@stcloudstate.edu
Simply An Amazing Revelation!!.......2004-06-26
"The Rite of Spring In Full Score" contains the complete unabridged score of composer Igor Stravinsky's timeless classic "The Rite Of Spring". Besides presenting the full musical notation for the entire piece, this book also contains a brief but detailed history on the work. Looking at the score is an astounding revelation into Stravinsky's creative genius. What often sounds like pure noise on recordings and in performance is in reality carefully notated and fully realized. In other words, Stravinsky knew exactly what he was after when he composed "The Rite of Spring" and the score proves it in all its glory. Even if you can't read music, if you're a fan of Igor Stravinsky and "The Rite Of Spring", this score is an essential guide and study tool to this revolutionary work. It also offers an insight into the composer's fascinating creative mind.
Most strongly recommended!.......2002-08-15
It's no secret that "Vjesná Svjashchjénnaja" ("Spring Consecrated", a literal translation of the original Russian title) is an exceedingly difficult piece to understand; doubly so if all one can do is hear a recording. A score is essential for it to be fully understood - and what better way to handle this challenge than via this reprint from a Soviet edition(outstandingly accurate yet inexpensive)? Another bonus: you also get to sample some of the thinking and ideology that Communism was forcing on its people in all regards and all walks of life - outstanding reminder of what political correctness can do to us all(this warning especially meant for those who believe in it in any way whatsoever...)!! Buy this without delay!!!
Probably the greatest musical composition of all times.......2000-04-20
For anyone who loves music in general as much as I do, Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring can be, to say the least, a shockingly intense listening experience, full of strangely dissonant polytonal simultaneities, overwhelming rhythmic dephasing, and colorful details and timbristic effects that take maximum advantage of what a great symphony orchestra has to offer. This edition of the translated original score allows you a better understanding of this revolutionary musical monsterpiece, with visual complement to what your ears couldn't even consider figuring out. Sometimes it's simpler than you would imagine; sometimes it's much, much more complex. This work taught me a great deal about music composition & arranging, and the book also allowed me to write a reduction of the "Spring Rounds" for a 7-piece band.
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Memoires and commentaries
Igor Stravinsky
Manufacturer: University Microfilms International
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Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0006XQ00K |
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- Great Stories, Picked to Fit Gardner's Schema
- A source of inspiration
- Creating Minds
- The "Creative Enterprise Writ Large"
- book sales boosted by famous names.
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Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi
Howard Gardner
Manufacturer: Basic Books
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The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach
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Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
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Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century
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Leading Minds: An Anatomy Of Leadership
ASIN: 0465014542 |
Book Description
The man who revolutionized our understanding of intelligence now gives is a pathbreaking view of creativity, along with riveting portraits of seven figures who each reinvented an area of human endeavor. Understanding their diverse achievements not only sheds light on the nature of creativity but also elucidates the "modern-era"--the times that formed them and that they in turn helped to define.
Customer Reviews:
Great Stories, Picked to Fit Gardner's Schema.......2005-02-07
Howard Gardner has changed the way we think about intelligence. His seminal book, Frames of Mind, introduced the idea that the correct question we should be asking is not, "How smart am I?" but rather "How am I smart?"
It was Gardner who first came up with the idea that there are different kinds of intelligence, and that we have differing gifts in all of them. In Creating Minds, he goes beyond the basic concept that he laid out in
Frames of Mind, by looking at creativity through the lens of these multiple intelligences.
What he tries to do is to illuminate how specific creative geniuses in different fields used different intelligences. On the whole, the book works.
Gardner gives us, in brief, the lives of Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky,
T. S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Mahatma Ghandi. In each biography, he talks about their particular gifts, especially their "intelligence," using his own framework. This works very well with some of his subject and not so well with others.
It's easy to get a handle on spatial intelligence with Picasso, and musical intelligence with Stravinsky, and linguistic intelligence with Eliot. It's easy to understand how a dancer like Martha Graham has bodily or physical intelligence. But when we move into some other domains, especially the social, things get a bit murky.
The chapter on Ghandi seems to me to be in the book because it was necessary to complete the range of intelligences that Gardner had described. Part of the problem may be that political creators have to mobilize other human beings and creativity in that domain is sometimes is harder to judge and define than, for example, the ability to conceptualize a sculpture or a set of mathematical equations.
I also wish that Gardner had included some comparisons of other contemporaries in the same field in some of his stories. I would like, for example, to have seen Gandhi set against Hitler. Both were effective at mobilizing people, but they pursued very different ends. Or, perhaps we could have set Gandhi against Franklin Roosevelt or Martin Luther King, Jr.
The biggest problem I had with the book, though, was Gardner's definition of creation as lifetime achievement. I'm not sure I'm comfortable, with the idea that the most creative people are the people who work in the same field throughout a lifetime, and make major contributions there throughout that lifetime. That certainly is one kind of creativity and it's well represented and analyzed in this book.
We learn, for example, that most of the creative people studied by Gardner seem to move through their creative life in stages. They spend a decade or so mastering their domain and then producing great work. Then there's another decade or so spent mastering a new aspect of the domain, followed by more creative output.
We also learn about the need for a circle of people around the creative person who provide both support and stimulation. Many times these are the unsung heroes of the genius' career.
There are some things missing, though. There's no discussion of folks who produce creative work in different fields.
There's a good deal to be said for the idea that someone - such as Linus Pauling, recipient of two Nobel Prizes - who changes fields and makes major contributions in more than one field, is more creative than a person who stays in a single field. There's something to be said for the argument that a person who is effective in many areas, but not of genius caliber in one, is as creative as the one-field genius.
Those kinds of reservations lead me to suggest that this is a much more compelling book as biography than it is as psychology. You can, if you choose, forget all of the material about what constitutes creativity and the reference to the multiple intelligences and read each of the main characters' sketches as a short biography and come away with an insight into that person and his or her creative life that you would not have otherwise.
This is a good and illuminating read. It will stretch your mind and your understanding.
A source of inspiration.......2004-03-07
I look to this book when I think about what to do with my life. Gardner is one of my favorite writers, someone who turned me on to Cognitive Science, and one of the only science authors I've read cover to cover.
Creating Minds.......2003-06-14
This book examines the creative process by reviewing the lives of seven highly creative people. I enjoyed the seven mini-biographies, but the attempts to generalize from them seemed ponderous. Some of Dr. Gardner's generalizations seem overly broad, some don't seem to be universally true even among the seven individuals he studied, and in any case seven cases isn't enough to generalize from with much confidence.
This book reminded me of Eric Erickson's biography of Gandhi, which I read years ago with great interest. Erickson's theories about the life cycle and how it applied to Gandhi's life were more satisfying to me than Gardner's generalizations.
There is an excellent 1955 film (Le Mystere Picasso) that shows time-lapse photography of Picasso's work in progress. The film helped me to feel better about my own frequent revisions when writing. It is available on DVD from a French company, Cinestore.com.
The "Creative Enterprise Writ Large".......2002-11-21
This is one of the most enjoyable as well as one of the most informative books I have read in recent years. I have long admired Gardner's work, especially his research on multiple intelligences which he discusses in other works such as Intelligence Reframed (2000), Frames of Mind (1993), and Multiple Intelligences (also 1993). As Gardner explains in the Preface, this volume" represents both a culmination and a beginning: a culmination in that it brings together my lifelong interests in the phenomena of creativity and the particulars of history; a beginning in that introduces a new approach to the study of human creative endeavors, one that draws on social-scientific as well as humanistic traditions." Specifically, this "new approach" begins with the individual but then focuses both on the particular "domain," or symbol system, in which an individual functions and on the group of individuals, or members of what Gardner calls the "field," who judge the quality of the new work in the domain.
This is the approach he takes when analyzing the lives and achievements of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. Throughout the book, Gardner makes brilliant use of both exposition (e.g. analysis, comparison and contrast) and narration (especially when examining causal relationships of special significance) to reveal, explain, and evaluate each of the seven geniuses.
Gardner sets for himself several specific objectives:
* "First, I seek to enter into the worlds that each of the seven figures occupied during the period under investigation -- roughly speaking, the half century from 1885 to 1935."
* "In so doing, I hope to illuminate the nature of their own particular, often peculiar, intellectual capacities, personality configurations, social arrangements, and creative agendas, struggles and accomplishments."
* Also, "I seek conclusions about the nature of the Creative Enterprise writ large. I believe that if we can better understand the breakthroughs achieved by the individuals deliberately drawn from diverse domains, we should be able to tease out the principles that govern creative human activity, wherever it arises."
* Finally, "I seek conclusions about the sparkling, if often troubled, handful of decades that I term `the modern era'...Such a selection [of the seven during the half-century period] allows me to comment not only on [their] particular achievemnents...but also on the times that formed them, and that they in turn helped to define."
Gardner achieves all of these objectives while somehow maintaining a delicate balance between respecting (indeed celebrating) individual genius and explaining the relevance (to each of the seven) of three relationships which are common to them all: the relationship between what he calls the "child" and the "master" throughout human development; the relationship between an individual and the work in which he or she is engaged; and finally, the relationship between the individual and other persons in his or her world.
Of special interest to me is Gardner's acknowledgment that two themes emerged during the course of his research for this book which he had not anticipated when he began. Citing a "confidant" relationship with Fleiss from whom Freud received "sustenance" when he needed it most, Gardner gradually realized that a relationship of this kind, "far from being an isolated case," represents the "norm" among the other six. Besso played much the same role for Einstein, Braque for Picasso, the Diaghilev circle for Stravinsky, Pound for Eliot, Horst for Graham, and Anasyra Sarabhai for Gandhi.
Gardner cites what he calls "the Faustian bargain" as the second theme which emerged unexpectedly during his research. This subject is much too complicated to be summarized in a review such as this. Suffice to note now that inorder to maintain their gifts and continue their work, the seven creators "went through behaviors or practices of a fundamentally superstitious, irrational, or compulsive nature," thereby sacrificing normal relationships with family members and friends. "The kind of bargain may vary, but the tenacity with which it is maintained seems consistent." I intend to keep these two themes in mind when I re-read this extraordinary book.
book sales boosted by famous names........2002-10-27
find your favourite name on the title and you will read opinions about how they stayed strong to succeed. Exercising a small amount of talent for a lifetme can go a long way.
Pretty interesting though.
Book Description
This book is the first to be devoted to the music of Stravinsky’s last compositional period. In the early 1950s, Stravinsky’s compositional style began to change and evolve with astonishing rapidity. He abandoned the musical neoclassicism to which he had been committed for the preceding three decades and, with the stimulus provided by his newly gained knowledge of the music of Schoenberg and Webern, launched himself on a remarkable voyage of compositional discovery. The book focuses on five historical, analytical, and interpretive issues: Stravinsky’s relationship to his serial predecessors and contemporaries; his compositional process; the problem of creating formal continuity in a repertoire so obviously discontinuous in so many ways; the problem of writing serial harmony; and the problem of expression and meaning. Challenging conventional interpretations, the book shows that Stravinsky’s serial music is not only of great historical significance, but also of astonishing structural originality and emotional power.
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The Salon Album of Vera Sudeikin-Stravinsky
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0691044244 |
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Before meeting Igor Stravinsky in 1921 in Paris, Vera Arturovna Sudeikin-Stravinsky (1888-1982) was already known as the "Muse of the Muses" in what had been the bohemian, intellectual life of St. Petersburg-Petrograd. Hers was the "Silver Age" of Russian culture, when symbolism reigned in the cabarets and the artistic process itself was a form of celebration. As the habitues of this world fled the Bolsheviks, Vera, an artist and writer in her own right, managed to preserve their heritage in an extraordinary literary production: an album containing poems, sketches, fragments of music, and other dedications by some of the most influential Russian cultural figures of the day. The Album, reproduced here for the first time, is both a record of a cultural diaspora and a monument to the Russian fin de siècle.
In 1917 Vera fled to the south of Russia with her then-husband Sergei Sudeikin, a renowned painter and stage designer for the Ballets Russes. They traveled three years throughout the Crimea, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, organizing artistic gatherings at many of their stops. Vera recorded her impressions of the journey and along the way invited her famous friends to make creative offerings to her Album. Together they produced a "literature of loss"--of city and country, of childhood, of an entire era. The material, much of which has never been published, includes poems by Osip Mandelstam, Konstantin Balmont, and Mikhail Kuzmin; musical fragments by Vladimir Pol and Igor Stravinsky; and drawings and watercolors by Boris Grigoriev, Lado Gudiashvili, Sergei Sudeikin, the Zdanevich brothers, and Vera herself.
The Album survived war, revolution, and exile, but it was never published until now. In this edition, which reproduces every page of the Album in full color, John Bowlt uses Vera's diaries along with many other sources to explain the stories behind the entries. The biographical information, dates, and places, all accompanying each entry, will help today's readers form a vivid picture of a fascinating era, and an understanding of an extraordinary woman and the cultural liaisons that made up her world.
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Stravinsky:2 Suites
Igor Cd0143 90164 Stravinsky
Manufacturer: EMPIRE MUSIC GROUP
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: 6305940517 |
Book Description
This, the second and final volume of Stephen Walsh’s magisterial biography of Igor Stravinsky, begins in 1934, when Stravinsky is fifty-two and living in France. Already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation, Stravinsky is nevertheless at this point a fairly unhappy expatriate, all too aware of the war clouds beginning to gather. Though he still maintains a family life with his wife and children, much of his time is spent with his mistress, Vera Sudeykina, while traveling around Europe giving concerts in order to earn the money to support his dependents–which include a number of relatives. Composing, of course, remains the center of his existence. But changes are imminent: within only a few years his wife, Katya, will be dead, his family scattered, and Stravinsky himself, together with Vera, starting over again in America.
Stravinsky: The Second Exile follows the composer through the remainder of his long life, years during which he produces such masterworks as The Rake’s Progress and Symphony in C, and achieves a new level of fame as a conductor and raconteur in his own right. With a dazzling command of sources in several languages and a keen feeling for accuracy in situations where truth and falsehood have become blurred, Walsh traces and illuminates Stravinsky’s increasingly complex and often agonized family relationships along with his crucially important connection with his associate Robert Craft. Walsh is also, as a musicologist and critic, able to speak with knowledge and wit about Stravinsky’s work, expertly describing and assessing the composer’s musical journey from the neoclassicism of his late French and early American periods, through his early essays in serial technique, and on finally to the astonishing intricacies of his final compositions.
The first volume of this biography, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring, was received with glowing praise for its insight, narrative skills, and readability. The period covered here, beset as it is with myths and misconceptions, is handled with even greater authority.
Carefully weighed, eloquent, packed with rich and fascinating detail, it casts a brilliant new light on one of the greatest artists of our time.
Customer Reviews:
Not the best work on Stravinsky.......2006-08-02
Mr. Walsh's new book on Stravinsky has some interesting anecdotes and insights into the years in America for the composer but seems to lack real relevance historically.
What seems to be missing from this new book is any primary sources for his many anecdotes. The Stravinsky estate after his death is a matter of public record in the courts, yet Mr. Walsh has not done the research to get the real facts. Why?
There are excellent books by sources much closer to Stravinsky--to say the least Robert Craft's. Craft a twenty year associate of Stravinsky documented just about every waking moment of Stravinsky's life. Referring back to some of Craft's books on Stravinsky I find that Walsh has lifted numerous writings from Craft rather than bringing anything of real interest to life for the reader.
I have to say, this book is not the best work on Stravinsky and I hope other readers will go to better sources for a cohesive and cogent telling of Stravinsky's life and career.
The apex of the biographer's art.......2006-07-06
unless Mr. Walsh prefers 'musicologist' to 'biographer'. When I finished volume II, I immediately went and bought volume I. I rated the book 5 stars but wish I could give it 6. As a retired music librarian, I am cautious in following the hype about any new book on music/musicians/musicology that is making the rounds and more often than not, while the reviews may be accurate, regrettably, there are times they're not accurate enough. I think Mr. Walsh's two volumes are stunning. I think they are so good that once started, one wants to do nothing but sit and read them.
The period and the musical life out of which Stravinsky emerged is not unknown to me and I think the deepest connection I developed with Stravinsky's music was when I played in a performance of Symphony of Psalms. Whether or not I walked away humming portions of it (which is unlikely since I cannot sing), the music has left, to use a trite phrase, an indelible mark on both my musical and cultural psyche, but so has the personality of Stravinsky himself. And Mr. Walsh does an incredibly job of making him breathe. It isn't just Stravinsky who breathes in the course of reading this book (I haven't finished Volume I) but the words and the events and the people take on a life that is far more than facts as accurate as they might be.
I cannot recommend these two volumes highly enough and I only wish it was possible for Mr. Walsh to write a third.
A valuable second volume of an important biography of Stravinsky.......2006-06-03
Regardless of your opinion of his music, there is no doubt that Igor Stravinsky was one of the most significant composers of the twentieth century. I love his music and find his many changes in style fascinating. And while his big well-known masterworks (even the debate over which those are) are more widely appreciated, I also find his smaller works interesting and engaging. No matter what he did, Stravinsky created works that were among the most lively and engaging in whatever style he was using. He was fiercely independent and uncompromisingly himself. Given the course of the life he led and the multiple exiles alluded to in the subtitle, the strength he had to maintain that originality is possibly the most amazing thing about the man.
This very large and very detailed biography of Stravinsky's life from 1934 until his death in 1971 is fascinating on several levels. For me, the most interesting part and the primary reason I wanted to read the book is to read in more detail the circumstances of the birth of the compositions from this half of the composer's life. Who commissioned what, how the final composition was or was not what was originally discussed, what the considerations were for the resources used, and then Stravinsky's use of serial techniques (and how that developed and how the variety of approaches he took to serialism remained Stravinsky).
There is also the story of his life in Europe and then the move to the United States. The strange relationship between Stravinsky's first wife (whom he loved all his life even after she died) and his second wife, Vera, while his first wife was still alive and Vera was his mistress. Of course, this affected his relationship with his children, as did his life in Hollywood while they lived in Europe. Soulima later came to California and lived with Stravinsky for a time, but got a post on the piano faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Stravinsky's family details are not simple and it is interesting how the author, Stephen Walsh, teases them out.
Stravinsky never held an academic post beyond some short term lecturing and teaching of composition. He never even received an academic degree. He was a man who had to depend on himself and his music to make his way in the world. The reputation he had developed as modernist was both a source of pride and riches as well as a reason for others to attack him (from both the old and new guard). That he was strong enough to take the blows and keep composing and creating wonderful new works is a testimony of his own internal strength and of those who cared about him and supported him emotionally and in the practical day-to-day matters that allowed him time and space to compose.
Of course, whenever one considers this portion of Stravinsky's life, especially his close associates, the name of Robert Craft is right at the front if a bit off center. Walsh presents a complex picture of Craft (which means it is likely close to realistic) that acknowledges the important role Craft performed in getting Stravinsky through his compositional crisis after "The Rake's Progress". Stravinsky thought he was finished. He was nearly seventy years old and most composers (with a few notable exceptions) are no longer composing by that age. But many writers and composers have a period of being blocked at one time or another and find a way out. Would Stravinsky have found a way out on his own? Maybe. However, Craft was there and it was his support and guidance in the serial methods that gave Stravinsky new impetus and we have several wonderful masterpieces and many other interesting works from 1952 that would certainly not have come about without Craft and the role he played. However, Walsh also takes a clear and dispassionate look at Craft's statements and finds some of them truthful, others somewhat at odds with the facts, and others to be outright misrepresentations. The author is also as clear as it is possible to be about which letters, reviews, and books Craft wrote in Stravinsky's name. At some point it is not knowable whether Craft was saying what Stravinsky wrote in different words or which pieces are Craft using the Stravinsky name to advance his own agenda.
The last few years of the composer's life, after the "Requiem Canticles", are a period of decline and rising family tensions. How all that explodes in sad recrimination and jealousies after Stravinsky's death is quite sad. Nobody comes off all that well, but Vera and Craft least of all. I am sure they would tell this story differently (and Craft has), but it seems to me that the children (then older adults) were not treated as well as they should have been.
In any case, I am grateful to Craft for the support he gave Stravinsky and music that support allowed him Stravinsky to write and the support he gave Stravinsky in promoting his work and in conducting and recording his works, especially when Stravinsky was too frail to do the work himself. Craft as a person is simply human after all with feet of clay (maybe clay up past the knees for all I know), but he still fulfilled an important purpose in Stravinsky's artistic life. Others may well have their own jealousies and resentments against him that exaggerate his flaws and assign motives that do not exist. Still, this book does a fine job in sorting out certain aspects of various situations that have been muddled and misrepresented until now.
The author does say some strange things about disease, but he is using the language the Stravinsky's used. For example, that a cold worsened into the flu or that tuberculosis was inherited. There is more of this kind of thing. He also focuses a great deal on the high commission and conducting fees Stravinsky charged. This is a fair point, but isn't really given its full context. Stravinsky was in huge demand; he was a unique commodity so he simply asked for enough money to make it worth his while. This may have upset some who would have preferred to get his work more affordably, but so what? Just compare what he received to popular artists such as Elvis and Frank Sinatra and all of a sudden he doesn't look so well paid.
For me, the most odd thing the author said is on page 464 where the author refers to "The Rite of Spring" as a late romantic masterpiece. I was so startled that I had to stop reading. I remember when I first heard this work in 1971 or 1972 in a high school music theory class (music rudiments and grammar, really). It astounded me because I had never heard anything like it. As I played recordings for my friends, some thought I was running the music backwards. Nowadays, it does not shock nearly as much as it did even a few decades ago, but it certainly still has freshness and power. Stravinsky is a modern composer, not a Romantic composer of any stripe. You might get away with calling Firebird romantic, but even there it has little in common with Mahler or Richard Strauss or even Rachmaninoff does it? Such a label seems to me to be too much bowing to the serialists and other academic moderns. Is this really the term being used for this founding work of modern music outside the Boulez - Stockhausen - Babbit believers?
I enjoyed this book a great deal and it will have a valued place in my library.
Exhaustive Biography of Stravinsky from 1934 to His Death.......2006-05-11
Following up the wonderful first volume of his biography of Stravinsky, Cardiff University musicologist Stephen Walsh gives us a second and final volume that begins in 1934 and ends with Stravinsky's death in 1971. This takes us through the unsettled 1930s, his emigration to America and then the final years with his conversion to ultra-modern techniques. It would appear that Walsh has read and digested everything written about the composer during the times in question, and he has interviewed many people who knew and worked with him. At times the narrative is weighted down by 'and then he conducted X in Y' but his always graceful, indeed beautiful, prose makes even those laundry list sections interesting reading. There is some attention paid to the ins and outs of the works themselves but this does not pretend to be an analysis of Stravinsky's oeuvre; Walsh has already written such a book, the exceedingly valuable 'The Music of Stravinsky.'
There is, of course, a good deal of mention of that most important of late Stravinsky associates, Robert Craft, who has himself written extensively about the composer. There are some disagreements with Craft's published statements, but less than one might imagine and it is done with evenhandedness and tact. Nonetheless, he indicates that Craft's personal involvement with Stravinsky led to some imprecision in his observations and assessments.
For those who have read the earlier volume this is a must-have. For those who are tempted to get this volume without having read the earlier one, I'd suggest some caution. In the present volume there are many references to incidents and people whose importance is unexplained and which can only be gleaned from having first read the earlier volume, 'A Creative Spring.' But taken together these two volumes are indispensable for anyone wanting to understand Stravinsky the man.
Scott Morrison
Book Description
Stravinsky is one of the most original creative musicians of the 20th century. In a career spanning six decades he composed a glittering sequence of works of astonishing diversity, from the three, vividly colourful early Russian ballets, through the sharp wit and purity of his `neo-classical' scores and the powerful spirituality of works like the Symphony of Psalms and the Mass, to the highly individual application of serialism in the late works. Here is a critical survey of Stravinsky's entire output in chronological order from an authoritative lucid guide. Its author, Stephen Walsh, has effortlessly assimilated the new literature on the composer, has examined many of Stravinsky's letters and sketches, and is able, in continuously questioning received views, to provide fresh insight into Stravinsky's works. He argues persuasively that Stravinsky needs to be seen as a whole, and that the works are more closely connected in style and method than is generally acknowledged, with changes in stylistic posture secondary in importance.
Customer Reviews:
authoritative.......1999-03-09
The most authoritative examination to date of the music of the premier composer of the twentieth century. We eagerly await Mr. Walsh's two volume biography of the subject.
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