Late Austerity
Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Igor Stravinsky, today focusing on the composer's late move towards serialist methods of composition.
Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Igor Stravinsky, today focusing on Stravinsky's late move towards serialist methods of composition.
It鈥檚 not clear whether Stravinsky鈥檚 move in this direction was directly attributable to the influence of his musical assistant Robert Craft, but the younger man regularly conducted concerts which included works by Schoenberg, and Stravinsky seems to have set about a re-appraisal of his own technique.
In his record of conversations he had with Stravinsky over the years, Robert Craft recalls an occasion when he challenged the composer to 'draw' his recent music. Craft led the way by illustrating plainchant with a single straight line, polyphony with four parallel lines, Bach with a grid, Wagner with what looks like a diagram of an interior-sprung mattress, Webern with a spiral, and the new serialists with what looks like a sketch for a painting by Piet Mondrian - overlapping quadrangles. What Stravinsky came up with to depict his own music of the time - the late 1950s - looks like a simplified version of Harry Beck鈥檚 brilliant schematic map of the London Underground system, with a series of points connected by straight lines. 'This,' the composer said, 'is my music.'
In Memoriam Dylan Thomas
Ensemble Intercontemporain
Pierre Boulez, conductor
Movements for Piano and Orchestra
Oli Mustonen, piano
Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor
Agon: Act IV
London Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra of St Luke's
Robert Craft, conductor
The dove descending breaks the air
Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, conductor
Canticum Sacrum
SWR Baden-Baden and Freiburg Symphony Orchestra
SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart
Michael Gielen, conductor
Produced in Cardiff by Martin Williams.
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Igor Stravinsky
In Memoriam Dylan Thomas
Orchestra: Ensemble intercontemporain. Conductor: Pierre Boulez. Singer: Robert Tear. -
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Igor Stravinsky
Movements for piano and orchestra
Performer: Vladimir Ashkenazy. Performer: Olli Mustonen. Orchestra: German Symphony Orchestra Berlin.- 4402292.
- 402292.
- 10.
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Igor Stravinsky
Agon: Act IV (extract)
Performer: Orchestra of St. Luke鈥檚. Conductor: Robert Craft. Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra.- 8557502.
- 8557502.
- 22.
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Igor Stravinsky
The Dove Descending Breaks the Air
Orchestra: Collegium Vocale Gent. Conductor: Philippe Herreweghe.- G0100034680020.
- G0100034680020.
- 1.
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Igor Stravinsky
Canticum Sacrum
Performer: Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Performer: SWR Vocal Ensemble, Stuttgart. Conductor: Michael Gielen.- SWR19023CD.
- SWR19023CD.
- 1.
Broadcast
- Fri 10 May 2019 12:00大象传媒 Radio 3
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