But unlucky to have his music, which is uninteresting. As he himself was--have you read his lectures? What a prig, and how old-fashioned and trite his ideas are! He's like some arid Jansenist. It's like he stepped out of a Bresson film.

@@johnryskamp7755 I find his music to be too much head and not enough heart. I prefer Gershwin.

@@johnryskamp7755 Go to hell!How arrogant .

@@stephenjablonsky1941 I don't like Champagne, I prefer Sprite.

Not in all cases. Boulez's recording of Mahler's 5th is too held-back in my opinion.

Dream on!

I don't know where you got such a notion. IS composed this many years after his first visit to Manhattan.

Stravinsky, as a general rule, rarely spoke on the extramusical references and inspirations of his work, but this symphony is one of the prominent exceptions to that rule. In the program notes during the work's premiere in NYC, he had argued that he considered it to be purely absolute, with no extramusical references (an attitude which was corroborated in his autobiography a decade prior to the debut of the Symphony: "I consider that music, by its very nature, is essentially powerless to express anything at all…"¹). However, in Robert Craft's book Dialogues and Diary, published in 1963, Stravinsky made the case that the work was actually composed as a reaction to events surrounding World War II (e.g. the first movement was inspired by the Japanese scorched earth tactics utilized in the Chinese theatre)². However, even despite this, he does close discussion on the piece with the remark: "But enough of this. In spite of what I have said, the Symphony is not programmatic. Composers combine notes. That is all."³ So no, this particular piece wasn't inspired by Manhattan. There are elements of American music, particularly jazz, that Stravinsky does use throughout the piece. However, the extramusical connotations of the piece, if Stravinsky ever intended any, were wholly separate from Manhattan itself. Sources: ¹ - Stravinsky, Igor. An Autobiography. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935), 53. ² - Craft, Robert. Dialogues and Diary. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963), 83-85. ³ - Ibid., 85.

Magnifique chef d'oeuvre. Très belle version ❤.

You might be thinking of the last two movements of the earlier Symphony in C. And probably the boulevards of Los Angeles! But they certainly share the shame open-eyed motoric thrill.

A pity Boulez's music is just elevator music for crash test dummy factories..

​@@psijicassassin7166😕

I wish he had conducted a few more works, e.g. Oedipus Rex.

Beautifully put, if I may say so. And don't forget the piano's octatonic boogies in the first movement!

Especially when he puts dominant notes of a phrase on weak beats and vice versa when he could write it "straight" without the metric changes. But it wouldn't sound the same.

It's one of the rather obvious devices of all Stravinsky's music beginning with Mavra. How empty it is--the persistent criticism of Stravinsky's music.

Stravinsky's ideas are always simple because he had no ideas--simply a burning desire to get out of Petersburg.

@@johnryskamp7755 at the very least, it is evident you have no appreciation for complex rhythmical devices 🥸

i could be wrong but I gather this euphoric ending was written at almost exactly the same time as the bombing of Hiroshima. Make of that what you will! (I'm pretty sure IS was unaware of the tragedy)

Like a sneaky walk

That’s what I’ve been trying to say.

Should say that it doesn't follow it exactly, when the scales have a B, the timpani plays G. It's a fast and intense section, guessing it would be too much to tune down to a B for one note. Timpani switches to a G major triad right after this section, though Stravinsky gives the timpanist time to make this switch.

Yes, so much better than Bartok, that hack.

three, drei, trois, tre, tres, tri ... három

Seems? That's because this work takes many passages right out of the Sacre (as well as Pet.).

Yes, 'noir' is just right, but more likely to be Los Angeles, where he was living at the time (Hollywood, to be precise) I was watching 'Kiss me Deadly' the other evening and was looking out for Igor walking along Sunset Boulevard (1955)!

D flat 9 add 6

Yes, mediocrities do tend to borrow from each other.

@@johnryskamp7755 very funny

cool info tnx

Maybe they could use it in a commercial for Oreos.

A film score with this much nuance and character would have been the next level for cinema. Still could be.

I am a retired Bassoonist and worked with many of the London orchestras after leaving the BBC Philharmonic in 1973. I played this work by Stravinsky many times and I can assure you this particular passage is difficult even for professional players. The problem is the passage is in very close cannon and a sort of stutter occurs between the players. Experiments have been made to discover the cause of stutters in speech and it was found that if you record a person speaking and playback a fraction of second later at the same time as speaking, the individual will begin to stutter. This is what happens here in this passage for the players. If even one of the players gets slightly out with the rhythm then the passage falls apart.

There is a mistake in counter-bassoon part two measures before RN 177 . There should be added g flat quaver on the second ( from six) beat and semi quaver c flat must be moved to the beat “four-and” ( the 8th semi quaver in this measure ). If this mistake is fixed in Counter-bassoon part the part of the second bassoon seems to be more logical and much easier to perform.

varying harmonic structures.

the central movement, with the harp, apparently.

Well, I don't see focused intensity as being a singular nuance either.

They are already in English.

clueless ads

There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required. Neither more nor less

@@wanderlngdays Quite right.