Musical Conductors In Igor Stravinsky

This contrasts the motives of the composer and the conductor, which should be to keep the integrity of the piece of music, but as mentioned above, Stravinsky believes that the conductor's are usually for personal gain.

The first of Igor Stravinsky's three famous early ballets, The Firebird is the most traditional and derivative. While The Firebird, similar to Petrushka and The Rite Of Spring, is unquestionably one of Stravinsky's masterpieces, if considered strictly historically it can be, with some justice, viewed as warmed-over Rimsky-Korsakov (the device of contrasting a folkloristic, diatonic style representing human characters, with a highly chromatic style reserved for depicting the supernatural had its most conspicuous use in Rimsky's

Auer, Leopold. Violin playing as I teach it, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1921.

Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring “ are two of the most influential ballets to ever be recorded. Their ballets have been played and duplicated for many years. I will start this paper with a summary of each composer which will include where they are from culturally, geographically and musically. Then I talk about each ballet. Where it was written, the story behind each piece, and its reception now and its reception at the time it was published. I will also include the popularity of each ballet in other forms such as Disney. Finally, I will provide a detailed concert report of each ballet.

​In his derogatory passage, Igor Stravinsky discusses the common views and reputation of orchestra conductors; he argues that conductors are not musical gods but rather destroyers of musical compositions and the glory that they are meant to receive. Because Stravinsky is a composer himself, he has firsthand experience with the relationship between composer and conductor and has dealt with conductors that have conducted his compositions. Stravinsky’s purpose in writing this passage is to convince the reader of the false perspective they possess of conductors. He wants to correct these pretenses and expose the façade of conducting in order for the reader to disassociate the conductor with being the star of the performance and help them focus

Composers’ representations of the complex relationship between people and politics are influenced by various moral and social agendas, whereby a portrayal of reality and meaning is inherently subjective.

To conduct a band, even one as prestigious as the United States Navy band, it needs a conductor to guide the band and help them improve.

Igor Stravinsky is considered by many the greatest composer of the 20th Century. Several composers have made breakthroughs and great accomplishments in the past 100 years, but Stravinsky has dominated nearly every trend set. He was born near St. Petersburg, Russia in Oranienbaum, on June 17, 1882. He was born to a famous Russian bass opera singer, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky.

While I sit amongst the ranks of a stringed beast, my orchestra, I appreciate the small failures made by myself and my fellow musicians as we fly through the twists and turns of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.2, The Little Russian. A missed accidental in measure thirty-one or an unfavorable bowing in need of correction ten measures after G help the ensemble to advance as a whole. My great gratitude for failure did not carry on outside the ranks of a symphony. Failure was the devil in music, a tritone, under my bed. My dad always told me, “Experience is what you have right after you needed it.” I never found the value of a major seventh chord until it was placed within the sheet music of my life.

He does not create scores with orthodox musical methods and his music can be unpleasant or even irritating to some; yet by using a technological process, he reveals a naturally occurring acoustic phenomena and demonstrates it an unforgettable physical form. In the simplest way one could imagine (play-record-play-re-record-repeat), Lucier successfully guides the audience to pay attention to listening itself, to sound itself, to the space that we stand in, to the effect that the surrounding environment may have upon us. Other composers may deliver emotions or opinions through their works, but Lucier manages to erase all these subjective judgements, triggers a self-reflecting thinking process and initiate a borderless experience that all audience shared

Mendelssohn was a famous German composer of the Romantic period. Although he was born into a Jewish family and grew up without a religion he soon became a reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was born with the talent to be able to play instruments and make music, but his parents never really supported his talent and didn’t help him to improve his talent. He went on to pursue what he loved to do and that was to compose and conduct music. Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany, 1809.

He waited until the concert ended and then made himself known to the young and perfect maestro. Meeting the young virtuoso caused an irreconcilable experience of mixed emotions which he had never before experienced and he certainly did not understand now. Stradivari spoke in reluctance and hopeful anticipation at once. He said, “Embrace the vision of this solo instrument, young man. I made this violin, yes. This is the finest instrument I could have ever crafted and the finest my family tradition has ever crafted. All that be as it may, without you this object is nothing but a mere stone. Take this and fill the ears of humanity with the celestial sounds of the Godly universe.” With that, Stradivari left the grandiose concert hall feeling so fulfilled that he had at least done something which would lift the spirit of humanity for centuries beyond. For that reason, every remaining day of his life he would ponder the moment he gifted that precious violin to the boy. You see, Stradivari knew that no matter what, the violin which was now the boy’s instrument would create and inspire, and forever empower the sentiments of music destined to change the universe

Leonard Slatkin, born September 1, 1944, is an accomplished conductor who has stood behind the podium of many orchestra’s.1 Slatkin’s parents Felix Slatkin, violinist-conductor, and cellist Eleanor Aller were both prominent musicians who took pride in their talents.2 Also, his maternal great uncle was Modest Altschuler, cellist and conductor for the Russian Symphony Orchestra in the early 1900’s.3 Due to his musically inclined family, Slatkin began his musical training at an early age; his initial instrument was violin, until his father taught him the basics of conducting.4 Slatkin went on to Aspen and Julliard to pursue a career in conducting. Later, in the year 2000, Slatkin became the eleventh Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.5

The music of Stravinsky has always been “ahead of time” in the way of using new and different ways of presenting music. His early ballets such as Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring being a great example of his modernism and will to compose music which is both innovative and shocking. For this essay I have chosen to write about The Firebird (1910) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Firebird was Stravinsky’s first Ballet and his first composition that reached many people because of its modernism and exoticism. The Rite of Spring is still renowned for its portrayal of primitivism, a concept that was accentuated by the riot that happened at its premiere.

Musical modernism can be seen as the time where music emerges its liberty from Romantic era style -that started in the late nineteen century to end of the Second World War- and gains new ideas and freedom. With the political turmoil and chaos that took over the European countries, -that lured countries into the First World War- composers and artists started to find, create more and new ways to express themselves. They eagerly began to discover the art of Eastern countries with the hope of finding new ways of expression. The changes in tonality, irregular rhythms, tone clusters, distressed and antagonistic melodies, the expressionist, abstract, unusual ideas over powers the music, the traditional structures recreated or composed with