Chez Stravinsky

[Karl Henning]

Yes, Stravinsky has ruined A LOT of Composers for me now [...]

[...] And I'm not even buying anymore, which is incredible and amazing all by itself!! It's just so much stuff to hear, it always sounds fresh...

To the first point:  that is a definite hurdle.  But you can get over it!  Your ears will be stronger!

To the second:  Yes!  The Stravinsky catalogue never stales.  And I WANT HIS SECRET!

BUT, Stravinsky's Works List isn't the biggest in history [....]

Not the biggest, no, not by quite a wide margin;  yet, how very substantial.

[snyprrr]

To the first point:  that is a definite hurdle.  But you can get over it!  Your ears will be stronger!

To the second:  Yes!  The Stravinsky catalogue never stales.  And I WANT HIS SECRET!

Not the biggest, no, not by quite a wide margin;  yet, how very substantial.

Well, obviously, one of his secrets is the "reinventing" thing. When was the last time you Composed outside your, presumably, hard won style? Or, what "hook" is YOURS ALONE (like Martinu's) and can be inserted into ANY "style"? Igor had that off'beat rhythm thing that followed him everywhere.

And when was the last time you took a favoured piece of music and orchestrated it?

And when did you scrap it all for a completely new style?



Well, to be fair, where would IS be without Diaghelev? Karl, maybe you need a sugar daddy?? I mean, after three stupendous ballets, IS could have, and did, do... anything... he went from that "Russian" style straight into ragtime.

Have you hidden Britney Spears quotes in your music? 'Smoke on the Vaten'? 'Variations on Margaritaville'?



We don't live in an era of Complexity anymore. We need it simplified for easy digestion by Generation Snowflake.

What happens when THIS generation becomes the "blue hairs"? Concerto for Kardashian?


I'd recommend doing a 'Peanuts' Opera or something, if you want recognition. You need something that's going to get the info-babes on MSNBC moist. And Ferneyhough ain't it.

Become the Bret Easton Ellis of Composers!

[Karl Henning]

And when was the last time you took a favoured piece of music and orchestrated it?

Well, I should finish my brass quintet arrangement of the Wachet auf! Chorale Prelude.  (In fact, I plan to do so in August.)

Because this does not really qualify, I do not think:

http://www.youtube.com/v/B6xeqrcavUQ

[Karl Henning]

Well, to be fair, where would IS be without Diaghelev? Karl, maybe you need a sugar daddy??

I suppose.

Have you hidden Britney Spears quotes in your music?

No, but there's a Gershwin allusion in Out in the Sun, and an especially sneaky use of Thelonious Monk's Evidence in my Organ Sonata.

[snyprrr]

Well, I should finish my brass quintet arrangement of the Wachet auf! Chorale Prelude.  (In fact, I plan to do so in August.)

Because this does not really qualify, I do not think:

http://www.youtube.com/v/B6xeqrcavUQ

But here's what I mean: in your orchestration, have you really settled on the STANDARD Brass Quintet?? Or, have you played with the instruments? Made a new combination? I mean, you're not just transcribing notes into their CORRECT place? How would Igor do it? WWID? Five tubas? Why not? A String Quartet with three winds??? Sure!!!

That vid is funny tho ... but I do like Eno's treatment the best...


I think you may be too much of a purist to really cut the cord... hmmm?


But... we're MAGA, so there's really no time for shit like music anymore,... sigh, LOL!!

Why you don't write 'Sonata for El Tupe' is beyond me. Your teacher Opera'd 'Brokeback', why not do Mein Drumpf or something? You just can't be a Purist anymore, that's so passe, it's been done, de rigeur, sneeze, ...

Otherwise it's just Transiberian classico-metal, Yngwie...


Watching Rollin's B+W '60s 'La Reine du Vampires' with an Avant soundtrack of free jazz... 'Death Laid An Egg' with music by Bruno Maderna, total noisefest...



Wait... is this the Stravinsky Thread,... lol, sorry, whoops...



It Is What It Is

[snyprrr]

I don't know how I feel about IS's Gesualdo, commenting on the previous Post. Nothing particular there...

[Karl Henning]

There are two distinct works, you know.

There's the Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa, three madrigals scored for instruments, almost literal to the source, very slight compositional modifications;  so the Stravinsky touch is most subtle.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Fh37u3djt6w

http://www.youtube.com/v/2xw12Cwx6bY

http://www.youtube.com/v/p4LsuPQoFA8

And there are the Tres sacræ cantiones, three motets which were missing the lowest part.  As I understand it, the upper parts are authentic Gesualdo, and Stravinsky composed a new line to substitute for the lost part..

http://www.youtube.com/v/EeG01wfTkKU

[Mahlerian]

And there are the Tres sacræ cantiones, three motets which were missing the lowest part.  As I understand it, the upper parts are authentic Gesualdo, and Stravinsky composed a new line to substitute for the lost part..

http://www.youtube.com/v/EeG01wfTkKU

This disc is so magnificent, I don't care what context it's mentioned in, I have to add my support for it.

[snyprrr]

There are two distinct works, you know.

There's the Monumentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa, three madrigals scored for instruments, almost literal to the source, very slight compositional modifications;  so the Stravinsky touch is most subtle.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Fh37u3djt6w

http://www.youtube.com/v/2xw12Cwx6bY

http://www.youtube.com/v/p4LsuPQoFA8

And there are the Tres sacræ cantiones, three motets which were missing the lowest part.  As I understand it, the upper parts are authentic Gesualdo, and Stravinsky composed a new line to substitute for the lost part..

http://www.youtube.com/v/EeG01wfTkKU

I could've sworn there was some Bach thing that IS added the "missing line" to. I seem to believe I have a disc sooomewhere with some HIP SQs that has these Bach fugues that IS added the "lost" line. But I can't find it; the one I thought was Mozart doing Bach fugues for SQ.

Dost thou knowest whateth I speaketh of?

This disc is so magnificent, I don't care what context it's mentioned in, I have to add my support for it.

Oy, you're going to make me, aren't you?

I've managed my Stravinsky Box by finding issues at pennies for the dollar. Those two Herreweghe discs would break me like Ahnold-  I AM having a hard time with 'Threni' simply because of all the exposed singing. I listened to the Herreweghe on YouTube and just couldn't handle a 1/2 hour of tenors... even if there is less "bleating"... I mean, it IS a tough nut to crack... and I don't think following the Jeremiah is going to help...

I wonder if I put on the LP version now... well, it's a bit early for me to be whipping my back... maybe I'll try today...

But I do seem to be able to handle 'Canticum Sacrum' just fine, between the Hyperion and Craft, which are two very very different takes. Besides IS, we also have Preston and Jarvi...

[Mahlerian]

I could've sworn there was some Bach thing that IS added the "missing line" to. I seem to believe I have a disc sooomewhere with some HIP SQs that has these Bach fugues that IS added the "lost" line. But I can't find it; the one I thought was Mozart doing Bach fugues for SQ.

Dost thou knowest whateth I speaketh of?

Yes, the Canonic Variations on Von Himmel hoch, where Stravinsky took the Bach organ work, orchestrated it, and added in the implied chorale theme, sung by choir.

Oy, you're going to make me, aren't you?

I've managed my Stravinsky Box by finding issues at pennies for the dollar. Those two Herreweghe discs would break me like Ahnold-  I AM having a hard time with 'Threni' simply because of all the exposed singing. I listened to the Herreweghe on YouTube and just couldn't handle a 1/2 hour of tenors... even if there is less "bleating"... I mean, it IS a tough nut to crack... and I don't think following the Jeremiah is going to help...

I wonder if I put on the LP version now... well, it's a bit early for me to be whipping my back... maybe I'll try today...

But I do seem to be able to handle 'Canticum Sacrum' just fine, between the Hyperion and Craft, which are two very very different takes. Besides IS, we also have Preston and Jarvi...

Strangely, I don't like Canticum Sacrum nearly as much, perhaps because the Columbia recording of it sounds so awful and needlessly harsh.

[snyprrr]

Yes, the Canonic Variations on Von Himmel hoch, where Stravinsky took the Bach organ work, orchestrated it, and added in the implied chorale theme, sung by choir.



Strangely, I don't like Canticum Sacrum nearly as much, perhaps because the Columbia recording of it sounds so awful and needlessly harsh.

1) Oh, OK. I could've sworn it was a String Quartet fugue... must be confused with Mozart.

2) You've gotta try Craft in 'Canticum'. He fixes all the Columbia problems; also much quicker and incisive. The Hyperion, too, is even better.

[ritter]

1) Oh, OK. I could've sworn it was a String Quartet fugue... must be confused with Mozart.

I've located this. I don't recall having read about this piece before:

Igor Stravinsky's final work, arrangements of Four Preludes and Fugues from Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, appears in print for the first time from Boosey & Hawkes, edited by Christopher [Hogwood].

Bach on the piano was Stravinsky's "daily bread"; Lillian Libman claimed he "began every day of his life by playing two or three fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier", and after the composer's death in 1971 Robert Craft reported finding the E-flat minor Prelude from Book 1 open on the studio piano, the last piece Stravinsky had played three days earlier. His copies of the Czerny/Peters edition are now in the Paul Sacher Stiftung, Basel, along with the autograph manuscript of his arrangements, scored for three clarinets, two bassoons and strings.

In an interview with Craft for the New York Review of Books, he said, "As for my 'aim', if I must pretend to have one, I simply wished to make the music available in an instrumental form other than the keyboard". Although he admitted to including "dynamix" lifted from the Czerny edition, he otherwise added very little phrasing and articulation, and since every bar exists fully scored in Stravinsky's hand, his intentions are rarely unclear. Any dilemmas that required editorial solution are explained in the Introduction and referenced in the Critical Commentary, and several facsimiles illustrate some of the more complex difficulties that had to be resolved.

From the late Christopher Hogwood's website: http://www.hogwood.org/archive/composers/others/bach-stravinsky-four-preludes-fugues.html

And this is the information on the score from the publishers Boosey & Hawkes.

[Karl Henning]

Cool.

[Karl Henning]

Strangely, I don't like Canticum Sacrum nearly as much, perhaps because the Columbia recording of it sounds so awful and needlessly harsh.

I guess I was lucky:  I heard it first in the Jas O'Donnell/City of London Sinfonia recording.  And so, I have liked it from the start.

[snyprrr]

I guess I was lucky:  I heard it first in the Jas O'Donnell/City of London Sinfonia recording.  And so, I have liked it from the start.

is that the live cd thingy, ? because craft's musicmaster cd is with st. luke. ribs... typing one finger.....

[snyprrr]

Cool.

I'm about to make a startling announcement

[snyprrr]

Cool.

Just ordered the Rex Lawson Pianola disc on MusicMasters. I HAVE arrived! Make way the rose petals...

[Karl Henning]

is that the live cd thingy, ? because craft's musicmaster cd is with st. luke. ribs... typing one finger.....

I don't think it's live, no.

And, come to think of it, I have that Craft disc, too . . . .

[snyprrr]

I don't think it's live, no.

And, come to think of it, I have that Craft disc, too . . . .

OK, you mean the HYPERION. That and the Craft are both very different and very illuminating. There's also Simon Preston and Jarvi, for the brave

Just ordered the Rex Lawson Pianola disc on MusicMasters. I HAVE arrived! Make way the rose petals...

[snyprrr]

4 Etudes

I juuust can't get excited about these at all, even though one can hear all of Feldman in No.2. All of Feldman. But, I've tried to avoid them as much as possible- I just went through Boulez/Erato, Boulez/DG, Inbal/Teldec, and Dutoit. Boulez's early Erato recording is much more natural than the sleek DG ('Madrid' sounding just a little too broad in the DG, also). Dutoit sounds as fine as any.

I just can't get excited here. Same goes for most of the 2 Suites and the 8 Instrumental Miniatures. As I think about it, I may not be all that excited about IS's orchestrations in general; it seems that he retooled a lot of my least favoured works: I was just listening to Boulez's Concertino, and I just can't get over how ugly I find the piece. Of course, its strangeness is also somewhat its appeal, but, I find that piece "turdish"- I see it shaped like a big log turd with all these,... pardon me... veins... feral...

NEVERMIND

Yea, if I start obsessing about the 'Canzonetta' please direct me elsewhere!