Stravinsky! That's right, everybody loves Stravinsky. But how many of you only know Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), or perhaps The Firebird or Petrushka? If so, then you were just like I was up until about a month ago. I knew old Igor was a crack composer when it came to those wild Russian ballets, and anyone who can write something that causes a riot at an opera house is okay in my book.
But I knew that Stravinsky had lived a long time and written a lot of music. But I never heard any of it. I mean, he's never gotten radio play, and on the rare instances when he does show up (on one of those real oldies stations), they just play one of his three hits - you know, how if they play three songs by The Who, one of them's got to be "Baba O'Reilly."
So I was looking on Amazon for some good deals (they're really selling CD's cheaply these days), and I came across this box set:
22 discs of Stravinsky. Only 34 bucks! Holy crap! That's enough to last a lifetime! Or at least enough to get started.
Okay, I've finally made it through all 22 discs, and I've got to say that this guy really deserves to be heard more. There are all kinds of things in here: operas, symphonies, oratorios, concertos, songs, chamber music. You name it, Iggy wrote it. And he wrote for a long time, too. And his collaborators? Well, how would you like to do a musical comedy with Picasso designing the sets? Need a librettist? Call up W.H. Auden. I mean, this guy had some serious friends.
But that's nothing compared to the variety of styles and approaches he employed in his compositions through the decades. Yeah, we all know about the great, rule-breaking "Russian period", where Igor simply tore down all the fences about what "classical music" is or ought to be, opening up form completely, playing volleyball with tonality, dragging in all those crazy rhythms. Yeah, that's probably my favorite time period, too.
But Iggy wasn't satisfied with tearing the place up. He got to feeling that he needed to put a few guideposts back so music would make sense to people, so he entered what he referred to as his "neoclassical period," in which he made use of established forms while retaining a lot of the breakthrough innovations he had knocked everyone out with back in the 'teens. How did they turn out? Well, there are all kinds of examples, since he wrote this way for like 30 years. Some are more sedate, some are more "out there", but it seems to me that they're all at least pretty interesting and deserve to be heard more.
Then, finally, in the 1950s (when Ig was in his sixties), he finally started experimenting with serial forms: you know, 12-tone scales, tone rows, all that. I'll be honest - these are some of my favorites. But I'm a sucker for atonality.
I think the most impressive thing about the man's career is that no matter what kind of method of composition he adopted or what form he attempted, he always sounds like Stravinsky. (You know like you always know its Coltrane, no matter what he's playing.) And man, Stravinsky is cool. He's a wild man even when he's trying to be all formal and sedate. Guess he just couldn't help himself, the crazy Russian.
But was he a genius? Was he one of the all-time greats, up there with Bach, Beethoven and Charlie Parker? I don't know. I just know I like it. And I like it so much that I've decided I'm even going to share it with you! Yeah, why be stingy? I've got so much Stravinsky now, I can't just horde it all to myself. That just wouldn't be right.
So I've decided to go back through the box set again, and this time I'll share it with all my friends and even write a little something about it, steal some photos, and we can all have a good time!
I know, summer's almost over - but that doesn't mean the fun has to stop. I think I can keep this Stravinsky thing going all the way to next spring. And don't worry about running out of material - we can always listen to some Bach!
Keep cool everybody - I'll try to get it going this week with the Ig-Man's first big hit: The Firebird! (Yeah, that's right. It's the one Yes used to start all their concerts with.) See ya soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment