Project 366 - Stravinsky Time Capsules

Project 366 continues in 2017-18 with "Time capsules through the Musical Eras - A Continued journey through the Western Classical Music Repertoire". Read more here.

This is the final set of time capsules in this tranche of Project 366 – these remaining seven listener guides are dedicated to the music of Igor Stravinsky, in my mond one of the most prolific and influential composers of the 20^th Century.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Stravinsky’s career arc mirrors the changing times in the 20^th Century and in his native Russia – at one point, he lived in Russia, Switzerland France and America. The aesthetics and traditions reflected in his music are manty; from post-Romantic in the Russian tradition, to neo-classical, to atonal.

Biography -  https://www.biography.com/people/igor-fyodorovich-stravinsky-9497118

Works List - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Igor_Stravinsky

Russian period (c. 1907–1919)

Stravinsky began piano lessons as a young boy, studying music theory and attempting composition. At his parents’ urging, he entered law school in Saint-Petersburg, but after four years of study, he chose to take private lessons under the tutelage of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with whom he studied from 1905 until Rimsky's death in 1908.

Listener Guide # 238 – Symphonic Stravinsky

Stravinsky’s “Opus One” is a Symphony in E♭ major. Of classical 4-movement structure, it is broadly influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Tchaikovsky and Wagner. The score bears the dedication "To my dear teacher N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov". (ITYWLTMT Montage # 263 – 31 October 2017)

Listener Guide # 239 – Ballet Suites

In 1909, Stravinskly began a long association with ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev for which he composed several ballets, including his first major effort in the genre, The Firebird first performed at the Paris Opéra on 25 June 1910. (ITYWLTMT Montage # 278 – 4 May 2018)

Listener Guide # 240 – Petrouchka

Stravinsky's second ballet for the Ballet Russes, Petrouchka, is where "Stravinsky at last became Stravinsky." The music itself makes significant use of a number of Russian folk tunes in addition to two waltzes by Viennese composer Joseph Lanner and a French music hall tune (La Jambe en bois or The Wooden Leg).(Vinyl’s Revenge # 25 – 28 February 2018)

Neoclassical period (c. 1920–1954)

During this period, most of the aesthetics of Stravinsky’s compositions embrace a return to the music of the Classical period but also his exploration of themes from the ancient Classical world, such as Greek mythology.

Listener Guide # 241 – Symphony of Psalms

Unlike many pieces composed for chorus and orchestra, Stravinsky said that “it is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing.” The work was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. (Vinyl’s Revenge # 34 – 23 January 2018)

Listener Guide # 242 – Basel and Dumbarton Oaks

This all-Stravinsky time capsule  features two of his concertos for orchestra and his set of neo-baroque danses concertantes. (Vinyl’s Revenge # 22 – 1 November 2016)

Listener Guide # 243 – Ernest Ansermet

With his passion for precision, Ansermet became, over time, one of the composer's most trusted interpreters, giving the premières of the Capriccio for piano and orchestra (1929, with Stravinsky at the keyboard). This artistic relationship would founder on the composer's late-career embrace of atonality, a system which Ansermet, trained as a mathematician, would reject on scientific as well as aesthetic grounds. (ITYWLTMT Montage # 286 – 31 July 2018)

Serial period (1954–1968)

In the 1950s, Stravinsky began using serial compositional techniques such as the twelve-tone technique originally devised by Arnold Schoenberg. He first experimented with non-twelve-tone serial techniques in small-scale vocal and chamber works.

Listener Guide # 244 – Intimate Works

This final time capsule of “intimate” works by Stravinsky spans many decades, and features most notably tracks from a pair of recordings by members of the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble. (ITYWLTMT Montage # 283 – 29 June 2018)