Stravinsky: "Variations: Aldous Huxley in Memoriam"

[IncaRoad01]

Anyone else think that Stravinsky looks like Gollum from Lord of The Rings in this photo? My precious ...

[guidepost42]

I was at the first performance of this in Chicago. Unexpecedly Bud Herseth made a bad entrance,

The piece was repeated (not due to Herseth's error) but so that we could have a chance to "get it" Polite applause to the composer, but apparnetly not to the composition. Even though the music is hard to grasp at first encounter , the delicious sound Stravinksy always got from the orchestra -any orchestra- was in abundance

[xManchasx]

Nunca, había escuchado esta pieza.

[MrInterestingthings]

Stravinsky waited till after Schonberg's death to publish serial works. Strav get's lots of interest even his later serial style is eventful and feels as if it is making sense. Webern,Berg I feel the same about yet nothing Schonberg did after "transfiguration" makes much sense.On the page his piano and orchestral music is stunning! The 5 orch pieces and much else is compelling but I rarely remember what has transpired.

[tuberobotto]

One of the best qualifying music of Stravinsky as a tone technician was "Oedipus Rex" and I was just awed by the amazing logic he applied to his orchestration. That was probably the period of Stravinsky I would listen to. I have to admit that though I have no trouble listening to 'gebrochen muzik' I am not really a fan. Aleatoric music is another field of adventure but the interest lasts only for a moment while Pointilism is tolerable only to an extent.

Isn't the diversity in music fascinating?

[peppersax]

Igor Stravinsky's style and compositional techniques are still employed today (especially in film music). He was way ahead of his time. The music he was composing in the 20's could have just been written in the year 2010. Listen carefully at around 0:09 - 0:35, one can hear where Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrman, Marco Beltrami and a host of other composers were influenced. THIS MAN WAS A 'REAL' GENIUS in the truest sense of the word. BRAVO! I have nearly all his works and never tire of them.

[japanesesweet]

@peppersax well spotted-that wonderfully athletic line is just the kind of music which is ripped off in Planet of the Apes.

[peppersax]

@japanesesweet That's right. You are referring to the original I take it???"The Hunt" by Jerry Goldsmith is pure Stravinsky.

[petezilla]

Stravisnky, IMO, "graced" 12-tone/serial composition with his presence. Agon is really awesome, and so is The Flood.

Boulez was a highly opinionated man but none of his music was nearly as interesting as Stravinsky's from ANY period. Although Stravisnky raved about his Le Marteau sans Maitre

Many of my favorite works by Stravinsky are in his neo-classical period: particularly Apollo, Concerto for Piano and Winds, and Orpheus, and even the Pulcinella suite.

[TassiloDavid]

The idea that Stravinsky started writing “serial” music because a bunch of kids nobody had ever heard of booed at a single concert in Paris that Stravinsky didn’t attend and only heard about after he wrote Threni is preposterous. “As if you could lead that horse to water, let alone make him drink,” as Robert Craft once put it.

[ChicorelliC]

-the grand master-

Stravinsky

[japanesesweet]

IS`s brand of 12 tone music is very special- the gestures and pitches are more immediately memorable than many works by Schonberg or Webern.

[NewMusicXX]

A very good observation. Shostakovich criticized 12-tone music because, as he put it, 'it all sounds alike'. Certainly not the case with Stravinsky. His 12-tone music is immediately recognizable as Stravinsky.

[pmgauthier1]

I must point out that not all of stravinksy's serial music is twelve tone. The parts that are recognisable as stravinksy usually carry his orchestral colors. ( his use of orchestration has been constant throughout his career) Id also add that 36'-42' sounds exactly like some webern

[WrestlingHeretic]

Stravinsky was very astute to observe that the principle of serialism itself and the use of twelve notes to serialize are not necessarily dependent on one another. He serialized and rotated rows of different numbers.

[merlinpi1]

thanks for this brilliant upload...Igor rocks THroughout a long and wonderfully eclectic musical life...le sacre is unequalled...petroushka ..the soldiers tale for a small ensemble is perfect...his catholic mass breaks the heart...the later serial work is food for the brain though difficult...THE MAESTRO...part of that explosion in the early20th century that blessed us with picasso joyce...huxley...FIREWORKS IN THE BRAIN.

[Bolender]

Despite all the comparisons to Webern, has anyone tried listening to this back-to-back with Firebird? I did once, and was really surprised. Variations is like a condensed version of Firebird with delicate atonal filligres, contrasts between aggression and mystery, transparent orchestration, and very danceable rhythms.

[in2bnvideos]

I will forever love your work, the delicious darkness of great courageous expression... such richness of color and orchestration... Stravinsky my true inspiration... -Trust One

[CurtisMateer]

The Webern like sparity or starkness does sometimes bore me in ways that Le Sacre and Les Noces don't. If he could have "Elliott Carterised" serialism into a Russian idiom instead of following the more neo-classical Germanic one it could be more definitively described as his greatest period. This one is heading in the rite direction though.

[soulima]

This is just remarkable music. Perhaps my single favourite piece of his entire ouevre. 82 years old.

[TheBlackPage1]

Thanks very much for uploading. I agree with you guys; I love late-Stravinsky. This one is great, but my favourite of this period has to be "The Flood"!

[NewMusicXX]

Thanks for the tip - I don't have a recording of "The Flood", but since you recommend it I'll check it out!

[Leibo07]

I like Strawinsky in general, but this is surely his most fascinating period. "Igor, Anton-wise".

[NewMusicXX]

Well said. I couldn't agree more. It's sad that he didn't live longer and have more opportunity to continue in this style.

[GreggaryPeccary]

I disagree. To me, his most interesting phase is the russian phase, including the ballets russes, chant du rossignol, petrushka and most notably le sacre du printemps, where he employs his very own language. Boulez agrees with me on that. This is more of a succumbing to the will of his time. Although it is undoubtedly very good, it's not strikingly stravinskian. His most boring phase, on the other hand, is his neo-classical phase, works like jeux de cartes or countless others

[NewMusicXX]

I'm with you on the neoclassical music. (Speaking of "succumbing to the will of his time...") I think Stravinsky (like Copland) was always conscious of the commercial aspects of music. His genius was the ability to work successfully in whatever "style" or phase he was in at the moment. I do think, however, that he was genuinely intrigued by the intellectual challenge of serialism.

[GreggaryPeccary]

Probably. But I think he was also spurred into writing like this by seeing the juvenile Boulez and his comrades act like brats at his concerts

[NewMusicXX]

I will agree with you that his early work, especially "Le Sacre" is remarkable, both for its time and even today! Le sacre du printemps" is one of the most complex and original compositions ever - I never get tired of hearing it!

[TassiloDavid]

The theory that Stravinsky only wrote "serial" music because some young unknown kids booed at a concert in Paris that he didn't attend and didn't know about until after he had composed Threni is ridiculous. "As if you could lead that horse to water, let alone make him drink," as Robert Craft put it.

[Bolender]

The only problem I have with S's neoclassicism is that it dragged on too long. Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms were inspired. But by the time one gets to Orpheus and Rake's Progress, much (if not all) of the music sounds like the product of inertia. Using rows was a clever way of breaking out of a rut. Even Cantata sounds fresher than what came just before, a work which technically may also be neoclassical but uses rows derived from modal scales.

[ggauche]

@NewMusicXX Got to agree and disagree with everybody on this. Stravinsky was a master in any style. Yes, few of his Neo-Classical works hold much appeal to me, but that's just about my personal taste.

His highlights are Movements and Variations, but if I was stranded on a desert island with a solar powered iPod, Le Sacre would have to be on there!

[ViewerNotes]

@GreggaryPeccary C'mon Greg!, if not entirely original some his neo-class works are quite fantastic. Ok, I recognize, there are some pretty blah in essence (or a guilty pleasure at least). In any case, for Stravinsky, every kind of music (,...even 12-tone) was something he used like a surface because every of his works sound with his fingerprint. A kind of perpetual neo-class, continuosly mutating his skin. There's no work more "Stravinskish" than other in my modest opinion.

[FenderRhodesService]

@GreggaryPeccary What do you think of Orpheus Greggary ? Dont you make an eception for that one ?