Who actually listens to Stravinsky?

[CRCulver]

(Note that this post is not meant to make any statement about his skills as a composer. FWIW, I actually like a lot of his music.)

Does anyone get the impression that Stravinsky is slowly being forgotten? While The Rite of Spring and Petrouchka may still get a lot of airplay, I've never come across people in music fora who have much to say the bulk of his output. In new music communities, his name rarely comes up even though people are passionate about seemingly every other modernist, and among my acquaintances who are conservative listeners even the neoclassical works are considered too "dissonant" for pleasure. For all his influence on 20th century music, he seems to have fallen between two audiences.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Does anyone get the impression that Stravinsky is slowly being forgotten?

I wouldn't phrase it that way, since it's clear that a few of his works still get played a lot. Rather, I would say that his reputation and image depend too heavily on that much-played handful of works.

Me, I'd love to hear a performance of Requiem Canticles, or the Septet, or the Symphony in C, or Agon, but they hardly ever get played, even here in Moscow.

[The Six]

Maybe his ideas are greater than his music?

[The new erato]

For all his influence on 20th century music, he seems to have fallen between two audiences.

Not with me certainly, but it's been a long time since I've seen him performed locally.

[val]

CRCulver

Does anyone get the impression that Stravinsky is slowly being forgotten? While The Rite of Spring and Petrouchka may still get a lot of airplay, I've never come across people in music fora who have much to say the bulk of his output.

I listen to Stravinsky and, believe me, with a great pleasure. I accept that the Rite of Spring and Petrushka are his absolute masterpieces. But he composed so many beautiful music! Listen to Les Noces, the Cantata, the Symphony in three movements, Renard, L'Histoire du Soldat, the Symphony of Psalms, the Mass, In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, among other masterpieces.

To forget Stravinsky - or Schönberg, Debussy or Bartok - would be the same as to forget Mussorgsky, Brahms, Berlioz or Liszt.

[karlhenning]

Does anyone get the impression that Stravinsky is slowly being forgotten?

By musicians?  Never.

By the orchestra subscribers?  Maybe.

At Symphony Hall in Boston, I've actually heard as many Stravinsky works programmed as Sibelius . . . maybe Sibelius is being forgotten, too?

[karlhenning]

And NEC actually (to borrow the adverb from the subject header) staged The Rake's Progress not all that long ago.

Keep in mind the overall arc of Stravinsky's career, too:  he began by writing orchestral ballet scores for the Russian Seasons . . . and then came WWI, when composing for large orchestra became suddenly impractical.  A lot of Stravinsky's subsequent work has something of a 'chamber music' mentality (even some orchestral scores, such as Agon, although written for orchestra, seldom make use of the full ensemble together).

Oh!  And I have heard two live performances of the Mass over the past few years.  Also heard the Symphonies of Wind Instruments live at NEC.

[Ugh!]

Stravinsky would certainly not be happy to think that interest in him was declining. Even more so, he would have continued to struggle with the constant reference to his early ballet works in favor of the rest of his ouevre. . .

[Ugh!]

A related question, then, is: whose stocks are on the rise (among classical composers)?

[Kullervo]

A related question, then, is: whose stocks are on the rise (among classical composers)?

Sibelius... possibly Martinů?

[Josquin des Prez]

A related question, then, is: whose stocks are on the rise (among classical composers)?

No one is on the rise. Classical music is being marginalized with each passing generation.

[Kullervo]

Here we go again.

[karlhenning]

A related question, then, is: whose stocks are on the rise (among classical composers)?

Shostakovich.  It is not really all that long ago that he was marginalized in the West as a tonal Communist lapdog;  even if some of the rise is to some extent biography-driven, on the whole he is rising in musical estimation even in academia.

Carter.  Again, one might argue that his centenary is not a musical reason for the attention, but his work is worthy of the attention.

Golijov.  Still a rarity among younger composers in the amount of press he's getting.

[Josquin des Prez]

Here we go again.

Well of course, i have a reputation to maintain.

[ChamberNut]

Shostakovich.  It is not really all that long ago that he was marginalized in the West as a tonal Communist lapdog;  even if some of the rise is to some extent biography-driven, on the whole he is rising in musical estimation even in academia.

Carter.  Again, one might argue that his centenary is not a musical reason for the attention, but his work is worthy of the attention.

Golijov.  Still a rarity among younger composers in the amount of press he's getting.

I agree with these.  Although I'm scratching my head about the one in the middle.   

Bruckner has been on the rise over the past decades, as well as Sibelius.  Perhaps even Vaughan Williams?

[Ugh!]

Well, certainly Grieg's stocks were rising to new heights during the Grieg 2007 centennary in Norway, don't know about his stocks elsewhere...

[mn dave]

I've never been a big Stravinsky fan. Though the "hits" are fun sometimes.

[karlhenning]

I've never been a big Stravinsky fan.

"Why is that, Dave?"

[mn dave]

"Why is that, Dave?"

Why are you using quotes? I assume because you're quoting something else.

I dunno. His music doesn't do much for me, I guess. The usual reason.

[(poco) Sforzando]

A good way to keep hearing Stravinsky is to attend the ballet, especially a company that maintains many of the Stravinsky-Balanchine collaborations in repertory, such as (obviously) the City Ballet here in NY. In the past few years I've seen/heard Agon, the Symphony in 3 Movements, the Capriccio, Les Noces (choreographed by Jerome Robbins), the Violin Concerto, Movements (which Balanchine coupled with the Monumentum pro Gesualdo), the Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fée, Apollon Musagète, and probably more I can't recall just now.