# Why didn't Stravinsky like Messiaen?



## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Of course I have no idea if it's reputable, but there's a quote circling the internet that Stravinsky said of Messiaen:

“All you need to write like him is a large bottle of ink.”

Did he like modernists at all? I just find it a bit odd since Messiaen was of course influenced by Stravinsky's works, not to mention analysed and taught them to his students. 

Of course, all sorts of composers disliked each other but usually they say things like "boring" instead of dismissing each other outright.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Stravinsky was a practiced dismisser: "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

My sister on Messiaen: 'That sounds like a kid banging a piano'

I think it is a fair criticism, notably biased against naiveté, but still. Too many notes at the same time all the time, usually not contrapuntally.

I guess the closest Stravisnky got to your average Messiaen is this.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> My sister on Messiaen: 'That sounds like a kid banging a piano'


My sister on Schoenberg's Piano Concerto: "That sounds like kid banging a piano while an adult tries to play it properly."


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

I would ask my sister what she thinks of Penderecki's Threnody - but as she's currently carrying a baby, I don't think it's a very good idea.

Stravinsky didn't dismiss Schoenberg so atonality/ serialism is not the problem. 

It kind of sounds like criticism of days gone by (e.g “I can compare Le Carnival Romain by Berlioz to nothing but the caperings and gibberings of a big baboon, over-excited by a dose of alcoholic stimulus.”)

Just that I wouldn't expect someone of Stravinsky stature to dismiss Messaien as someone who wrote gibberish.


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

I think I understand Stravinsky on this one. Messiaen sounds very pretentious at some points.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I don't listen to enough Messiaen to adequately say one thing or another, but I will say that nothing Stravinsky said about anything should ever, _ever_ be taken seriously for the rest of human history.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Basically just a very arch (and quotable) way of saying: too many notes.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I don't listen to enough Messiaen to adequately say one thing or another, but I will say that nothing Stravinsky said about anything should ever, _ever_ be taken seriously for the rest of human history.


That's rather extreme! What did Stravinsky ever do to you?!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Stravinsky was a practiced dismisser: "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"


Much like his good friend, Nabokov.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2015)

From a theoretical perspective, I can understand the "too many notes" idea, but when using just one's ears, Messiaen's use of those notes to create an extraordinary pallet of colors is sorta...a nice thing.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Shepard Fairey said:


> I think I understand Stravinsky on this one. Messiaen sounds very pretentious at some points.


If Messiaen was pretentious, Stravinsky was egomaniacal.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Morimur said:


> Much like his good friend, Nabokov.


He was friends with Nicholas Nabokov, not Vladimir Nabokov, who was amusical (they were cousins).

Anyway, the dislike was to some degree mutual. Messiaen didn't think much of Stravinsky's neoclassical or serial works, though he loved the early works (I've always felt Trois Petites Liturgies bears a strong influence from Les Noces).


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> That's rather extreme! What did Stravinsky ever do to you?!


Good question. Off the top of my head, he 'confessed' to stealing the opening melody for Right of Spring from the book of Lithuanian folk tunes. It's likely that was to quell any further investigation, given that apparently many of the tunes in that same book appear to have found themselves into the same piece, according to some musicologists.

To me, any Stravinsky quotation kind of seems like a funny, smart-alec remark made by a very wily person whose ideas were constantly changing or who just liked to say things for the effect they would have and not to dispense some kind of ageless wisdom.


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> Good question. Off the top of my head, he 'confessed' to stealing the opening melody for Right of Spring from the book of Lithuanian folk tunes. It's likely that was to quell any further investigation, given that apparently many of the tunes in that same book appear to have found themselves into the same piece, according to some musicologists.
> 
> To me, any Stravinsky quotation kind of seems like a funny, smart-alec remark made by a very wily person whose ideas were constantly changing or who just liked to say things for the effect they would have and not to dispense some kind of ageless wisdom.


That would be Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain.

Anyway, he had some strange political/ religious ideas among other things - but music is his sphere, he should know better. I guess it was not the same kind of dismissal that Strauss gave Schoenberg though.

What did Stravinsky think of other modernist composers? Did he follow up with the century?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Lucifer Saudade said:


> What did Stravinsky think of other modernist composers? Did he follow up with the century?


He was very complimentary towards Webern, Debussy, and (I think) Bartok. He thought highly of Schoenberg, but also considered his music too Romantic in tone and expression, and reserved his praise for some works only. Berg he found not entirely to his taste. He found Ives interesting, but variable. Going forwards in time, he loved Boulez's Le marteau, but not Pli selon pli (they had also had a personal falling-out in the meantime). His accidental discovery of Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings helped launch the international career of the then still-young Japanese composer. I have heard he thought highly of Stockhausen as well, but I'm not sure (a quote that supposedly deprecated Stockhausen according to one Russian edition of a Stravinsky-Craft book was more likely to have been about unnamed American academic composers).

He despised Britten, Shostakovich, and Villa-Lobos.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Stravinsky was a practiced dismisser: "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"


The witty, knowing, drily articulated _bon mot_ of dismissal - concise, stated more to impress than to convince, and phrased so as to be unanswerable - was well-practiced by Stravinsky, and to me it corresponds, in style if not in content, to the emotionally detached cleverness I find in much of his music. It strikes me as a quintessentially French art-form, an art of brilliantly crafted surfaces, with which mere significance is not to interfere. What does it mean? I don't know - but isn't it effective?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> What does it mean? I don't know - but isn't it effective?


But can you not ask the same question about _any_ non-programmatic music? What does Beethoven's last Piano Sonata _mean_?

What does Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 4 mean? I don't know, but isn't it effective?

I find plenty of deep significance in the music of Debussy and Ravel. Admittedly, I do find Stravinsky a harder nut to crack. Point being the suggestion that French music is somehow less significant or meaningful than other (German?) music is nonsense.

In the early 20th century many artists I think were exploring more emotionally detached perspectives, (at least in terms of outward expression). The music became more introverted. This does not make the music less meaningful. The fact music took this direction I feel is a completely natural place for it to evolve immediately following the Romantic era.

There are plenty of virtues to be found in the emotional expressions of the Romantic era, but the early 20th century served as a wise reminder of the myth of Orpheus - not to be ruled by our passions. One can find plenty of virtue and significance in both perspectives. One leans towards a cathartic honesty of sorts, the other a reminder of the virtues of self-control and discipline - seeking a wider perspective than one that is ruled by our personal emotions.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I know he liked Elliott Carter too.


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

"I have all around me the spectacle of composers who, after their generation has had its decade of influence and fashion, seal themselves off from further development and from the next generation (as I say this, exceptions come to mind, Krenek, for instance). Of course, it requires greater effort to learn from one's juniors, and their manners are not invariably good. But when you are seventy-five and your generation has overlapped with four younger ones, it behooves you not to decide in advance "how far composers can go," but to try to discover whatever new thing it is makes the new generation new." (Stravinsky and Craft 1959, 133)

He's not that unreasonable doncha think?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

tdc said:


> But can you not ask the same question about _any_ non-programmatic music? What does Beethoven's last Piano Sonata _mean_?
> 
> What does Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 4 mean? I don't know, but isn't it effective?
> 
> ...


I couldn't agree more. For composers like Palestrina we have as a reference point thinkers like Petrarch, Cusanus, and Vesalius. For composers like Bach we have Leibniz, Wittgenstein and Kant. For composers like Liszt we have Goethe and Lord Byron. And for composers like Stravinsky we have Hofmann, Proust, Hegel, Marx (it must be remembered that Marx, outside of political theory, had ideas about the process of history, a skeptical view of religion as the "opiate of the masses", etc.), and especially the neoclassical thinkers who helped form Stravinsky's thinking specifically.

None of this music happened in a vacuum, and looking at the philosophy and other art during these times can help us to understand generally intended impressions in non-programmatic music. We live in a very different world than them, and as their music in some sense allows us to vicariously experience that world.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Woodduck: The witty, knowing, drily articulated _bon mot_ of dismissal - concise, stated more to impress than to convince, and phrased so as to be unanswerable - was well-practiced by Stravinsky, and to me it corresponds, in style if not in content, to the emotionally detached cleverness I find in much of his music. It strikes me as a quintessentially French art-form, an art of brilliantly crafted surfaces, with which mere significance is not to interfere. What does it mean? I don't know - but isn't it effective?

tdc: But can you not ask the same question about any non-programmatic music? What does Beethoven's last Piano Sonata mean?

What does Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 4 mean? I don't know, but isn't it effective?

I find plenty of deep significance in the music of Debussy and Ravel. Admittedly, I do find Stravinsky a harder nut to crack. Point being the suggestion that French music is somehow less significant or meaningful than other (German?) music is nonsense.

In the early 20th century many artists I think were exploring more emotionally detached perspectives, (at least in terms of outward expression). The music became more introverted. This does not make the music less meaningful. The fact music took this direction I feel is a completely natural place for it to evolve immediately following the Romantic era.

There are plenty of virtues to be found in the emotional expressions of the Romantic era, but the early 20th century served as a wise reminder of the myth of Orpheus - not to be ruled by our passions. One can find plenty of virtue and significance in both perspectives. One leans towards a cathartic honesty of sorts, the other a reminder of the virtues of self-control and discipline - seeking a wider perspective than one that is ruled by our personal emotions. 

You've certainly read a lot into my witty, knowing, drily articulated _bon mot_ of dismissal, with which mere significance was not to interfere. What did it mean? I don't know - but wasn't it effective?

:tiphat:

(I was, by the way, characterizing Stravinsky's verbal manner, not his music. But I find it reasonable to draw some stylistic parallels.)


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Messiaen's approach is so non-Western, so this does not surprise me.


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Apparently he didn't think much of Scriabin either, although I understand he was influenced by his music (Scriabin-esque harmonies in Petrushka?) - some of his letter to Scriabin seemed complimentary as well. 

There was also something about jealousy of Britten or some such thing. Anyway, I guess no composer was exempt from these Tchaikovskian lashing outs, no matter how progressive or talented.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Lucifer Saudade said:


> Of course I have no idea if it's reputable, but there's a quote circling the internet that Stravinsky said of Messiaen:
> 
> "All you need to write like him is a large bottle of ink."
> 
> ...


Composers like listeners have every right to dislike another composer's music. In this case, I think it was because Messiaen's music was rather too blended between religious beliefs and modernism.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Composers like listeners have every right to dislike another composer's music. In this case, I think it was because Messiaen's music was rather too blended between religious beliefs and modernism.


interesting, as tons of stravinsky's later music in his serial period combines both of those elements. take for example his requiem canticles or his cantata.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Composers like listeners have every right to dislike another composer's music. In this case, I think it was because Messiaen's music was rather too blended between religious beliefs and modernism.


Are you trying to not make sense?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> (I was, by the way, characterizing Stravinsky's verbal manner, not his music. But I find it reasonable to draw some stylistic parallels.)


Indeed. Stravinsky's music is often very French, and Karlheinz Klopweisser (as channeled by Glen Gould) speaks of "German silence, which is of course organic, as opposed to French silence, which is ornamental..."


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Lucifer Saudade said:


> Of course I have no idea if it's reputable, but there's a quote circling the internet that Stravinsky said of Messiaen:
> 
> "All you need to write like him is a large bottle of ink."
> 
> ...


Composers like Stravinsky, namely the big guns of music with massive egos to match, would often say things indicating some sort of agenda. Trouble is, they inevitably end up contradicting themselves, especially if like him they live to a grand old age. Its natural and probably good for a person's opinions to change over time. A lot of it would be said thinking aloud (not always smart when everything is on record) and also as a kind of joke.

Whatever I think of Stravinsky as a composer, as a person I see him as more an opportunist than anything. For example, Mahlerian mentions Igor despising Britten, but that didn't stop him from stealing a tone row from one of Britten's works. I can't remember the works in question, but I read this in a biography of Britten.

The best thing I read about him is that Stravinsky avoided criticising Rachmaninov. There is the infamous six and a half foot scowl quip, but I read that when the two men met in the USA during WWII, it was an amicable meeting. However, they didn't discuss music, the main topic being them having children in occupied Europe. Its likely that Stravinsky thought that Rachmaninov had received enough criticism - such as from Adorno, who said his music was for imbeciles - and just gave him a break. Rachmaninov also influenced Stravinsky to a degree, early on.

I wouldn't single out Stravinsky as the worst offender in this regard either. There is of course Boulez, and others like Varese. I used to be a fan of Varese's various put downs of those who didn't like contemporary music (even had a quote by him in my signature when I joined TC), but now I think it just speaks of arrogance and snobbery. A kind of reverse Modernist philistinism. I also have little time for quite a few of John Cage's various musings. I don't think its useful to do this with listeners, or other composers, for that matter. But I suppose this all just indicates that these guys where human. They liked to gossip, like most of the rest of humanity.


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Sid James said:


> Composers like Stravinsky, namely the big guns of music with massive egos to match, would often say things indicating some sort of agenda. Trouble is, they inevitably end up contradicting themselves, especially if like him they live to a grand old age. Its natural and probably good for a person's opinions to change over time. A lot of it would be said thinking aloud (not always smart when everything is on record) and also as a kind of joke.
> 
> Whatever I think of Stravinsky as a composer, as a person I see him as more an opportunist than anything. For example, Mahlerian mentions Igor despising Britten, but that didn't stop him from stealing a tone row from one of Britten's works. I can't remember the works in question, but I read this in a biography of Britten.
> 
> ...


Thanks. Good answer!

Yeah Stravinsky had the gall to harshly criticize some of the people he himself was influenced by. LOL I supposed it's not really useful to read too closely into any of these quips. Boulez and the rest were heavy into ideology and Stravinsky once said that taste is a matter of morality or something like that - I suppose we're all humans and enjoy some good verbal sparring :tiphat:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Messiaen's music had no development in the Western sense, or harmonic function in the Western sense; that's one reason he influenced the post-war generation at Darmstadt, who were in search of something totally new. Stravinsky was still a traditional Western composer.

Some might have a hard time believing this about Messiaen, becuase his music "sounds good" as far as that goes. His music was still somewhat tone-centric, and most of all, like Debussy, it was still harmonic and had lots of harmonic color (just not function). He used harmonic artifacts of tonality, like triads, chords with 'roots,' etc.

But, other than that, his approach was radically non-Western.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Messiaen's music had no development in the Western sense, or harmonic function in the Western sense; that's one reason he influenced the post-war generation at Darmstadt, who were in search of something totally new. Stravinsky was still a traditional Western composer.
> 
> Some might have a hard time believing this about Messiaen, becuase his music "sounds good" as far as that goes. His music was still somewhat tone-centric, and most of all, like Debussy, it was still harmonic and had lots of harmonic color (just not function). He used harmonic artifacts of tonality, like triads, chords with 'roots,' etc.
> 
> But, other than that, his approach was radically non-Western.


Hell must've frozen over - I finally understood one of your posts, million.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Lucifer Saudade said:


> Thanks. Good answer!
> 
> Yeah Stravinsky had the gall to harshly criticize some of the people he himself was influenced by. LOL I supposed it's not really useful to read too closely into any of these quips. Boulez and the rest were heavy into ideology and Stravinsky once said that taste is a matter of morality or something like that - I suppose we're all humans and enjoy some good verbal sparring :tiphat:


I think what Stravinsky and Boulez had in common was a tendency for their own insecurities to affect their criticism of others. Stravinsky didn't like to let his mask of objectivity and detachment slip, and Boulez was obviously a perfectionist. I think the big difference between the two is Stravinsky's ability to make short, sharp and wry comments (as Woodduck observed) and Boulez's much more serious, analytical and intellectual approach.

Both seemed to be pretty upfront about things. Stravinsky attended rehearsal of one of his own pieces at Oxford. He didn't think the performers where up to scratch, so he didn't attend the concert that night, instead choosing a party nearby (which is where Peter Sculthorpe met him, this is in his autobiography). It takes a fair amount of audacity to do that!

With pronouncements from upon high by others like Varese and Schoenberg, what they said in their old age was may be coming less from arrogance and more from a sense of bitterness and anger at rejection. Although that's to simplify things, they had their admirers and got some deal of recognition.

Modernism was diverse, and it involved lot of ideological battles. Recently reading a book on John Cage, it was made apparent to me that early on he harboured ideas similar to the Italian Futurists - he said their Manifesto was one of his favourite pieces of writing - but if you look at those ideas today, you can see how those ideas about progress liberating humanity have their limitations. This feeds into Cage's move towards Eastern philosophy, which is a reaction to Western ideas of progress.

So across time you get many pronouncements and then the inevitable about faces. Modernism is inherently contradictory, and I have talked at length about this over the years and in much detail.

Post-Modernists make the argument that we have to accept the contradictions inherent in Modernism, in good part due to the type of hindsight I was talking about. All those utopian ideas have in retrospect appeared to be not much more than idealistic. But still, the fundamentals of Modernist thinking are intact and largely unchallenged.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

ArtMusic said:


> Composers like listeners have every right to dislike another composer's music. In this case, I think it was because Messiaen's music was rather too blended between religious beliefs and modernism.


I think that was a factor with criticism of Messiaen in general. He wasn't cool by the standards of Modernist detachment and rationalism - or of 20th century tendency towards secularism - because of his rock solid religious beliefs. He was organist at the same church for something like 50 years. At the same time, he wasn't what can be called a religious fundamentalist, his works fuse Christianity with other faiths. But the point is that he wasn't an atheist, he definitely had faith, and that goes against the grain of Modernism.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Sid James said:


> I think that was a factor with criticism of Messiaen in general. He wasn't cool by the standards of Modernist detachment and rationalism - or of 20th century tendency towards secularism - because of his rock solid religious beliefs. He was organist at the same church for something like 50 years. At the same time, he wasn't what can be called a religious fundamentalist, his works fuse Christianity with other faiths. But the point is that he wasn't an atheist, he definitely had faith, and that goes against the grain of Modernism.


Stravinsky and Schoenberg were both openly religious. It is true that there were modernists who were atheist, such as Boulez and Nono, but I don't think it's necessarily part of the movement as a whole so much as a prominent part of 20th century intellectual culture.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Stravinsky and Schoenberg were both openly religious. It is true that there were modernists who were atheist, such as Boulez and Nono, but I don't think it's necessarily part of the movement as a whole so much as a prominent part of 20th century intellectual culture.


That's a good point. I think that the composers' religious stance could be detached somewhat the analysis of their music as a whole.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> Stravinsky and Schoenberg were both openly religious. It is true that there were modernists who were atheist, such as Boulez and Nono, but I don't think it's necessarily part of the movement as a whole so much as a prominent part of 20th century intellectual culture.


I take your point, and in terms of intellectual culture at home, Messiaen definitely contradicted the existentialists.



Albert7 said:


> That's a good point. I think that the composers' religious stance could be detached somewhat the analysis of their music as a whole.


Harder to do with Messiaen than Stravinsky, even looking at the former's large body of organ music, but what do you think?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sid James said:


> Stravinsky avoided criticising Rachmaninov. There is the infamous six and a half foot scowl quip, but I read that when the two men met in the USA during WWII, it was an amicable meeting. However, they didn't discuss music, the main topic being them having children in occupied Europe. Its likely that Stravinsky thought that Rachmaninov had received enough criticism - such as from Adorno, who said his music was for imbeciles - and just gave him a break.


Stravinsky worked for years as a composer of ballet music on commission from choreographer George Balanchine, who notoriously disliked Rachmaninoff's music - or said he did, calling it "lousy" and "mush." I always assumed that part of his objection was that he found it unsuitable for dance; his love for Tchaikovsky can easily be related to the balletic qualities in that composer's music, and Stravinsky concurred in his esteem for the earlier Russian master of dance scores. But I recently discovered the following anecdote:

"In her memoirs, Alexandra Danilova recalls that Balanchine went backstage to tell Rachmaninoff how much he admired the older man's work, so much that he wanted to set dancing to it. Rachmaninoff threw him out of the dressing room. A ballet! To his concerto! Danilova adds that, for the rest of Balanchine's life, whenever he heard Rachmaninoff' s name, he would mumble "lousy music." https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/cflachs/limited/balanchine.htm

I haven't read anywhere what Stravinsky thought of Rachmaninoff's music, but I can't imagine him having much regard for it, or - maybe more to the point here - admitting to it if he had. There was an awful lot, at that time, that one was not supposed to like. It's rather hard to imagine, among the aesthetically forward-thinking artists and intellectuals lounging insouciantly about in the elegant salons of Gertrude Stein, anyone bringing up the name of Rachmaninoff without a smirk or a chuckle, accompanied by a long and ostentatious draw through an eight-inch cigarette holder.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> The best thing I read about him is that Stravinsky avoided criticising Rachmaninov.


I think that's because Russians stick together, just like any other groups in the workplace.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Stravinsky worked for years as a composer of ballet music on commission from choreographer George Balanchine, who notoriously disliked Rachmaninoff's music - or said he did, calling it "lousy" and "mush." I always assumed that part of his objection was that he found it unsuitable for dance; his love for Tchaikovsky can easily be related to the balletic qualities in that composer's music, and Stravinsky concurred in his esteem for the earlier Russian master of dance scores. But I recently discovered the following anecdote:
> 
> "In her memoirs, Alexandra Danilova recalls that Balanchine went backstage to tell Rachmaninoff how much he admired the older man's work, so much that he wanted to set dancing to it. Rachmaninoff threw him out of the dressing room. A ballet! To his concerto! Danilova adds that, for the rest of Balanchine's life, whenever he heard Rachmaninoff' s name, he would mumble "lousy music." https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/cflachs/limited/balanchine.htm
> 
> I haven't read anywhere what Stravinsky thought of Rachmaninoff's music, but I can't imagine him having much regard for it, or - maybe more to the point here - admitting to it if he had. There was an awful lot, at that time, that one was not supposed to like. It's rather hard to imagine, among the aesthetically forward-thinking artists and intellectuals lounging insouciantly about in the elegant salons of Gertrude Stein, anyone bringing up the name of Rachmaninoff without a smirk or a chuckle, accompanied by a long and ostentatious draw through an eight-inch cigarette holder.


I do remember reading that Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was made into a ballet, or some sort of project was hatched but later shelved. It was common for works that became successful in the concert hall to be made into ballets. Overall, Rachmaninov wasn't really into ballet, and his piano and concert hall works where meant to stand on their own as absolute music.

I remember reading an anecdote that was similar between Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. He tended not to like those who gossiped behind his back and duplicitously complimented him in person. Prokofiev came to him with such a compliment, and Rachmaninov replied in a cold manner, not warming to praise which he saw as being false.

I read that Rachmaninov's trademark bell sounds - especially the Paques movement in the Suite #1 for two pianos - may have influenced the piano part in Stravinsky's Petrushka. But Rachmaninov wasn't the first to do this, bells and chant permeate Russian piano music, including that of earlier composers like Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky.

In any case, if Stravinsky had been influenced by Rachmaninov, he would have been better to leave that unsaid. It was common for critics to deride Rachmaninov, whilst audiences loved his music.

Rachmaninov tended not to get involved in the various ideological battles, in interviews he mainly spoke of his own music and artistic goals.

Perhaps Stravinsky's famous description of Rach, that he was a six and a half foot scowl, was cheeky but accurate. Rachmaninov was a serious man who didn't smile much, and he had a commanding presence on stage.



millionrainbows said:


> I think that's because Russians stick together, just like any other groups in the workplace.


Mahlerian said Stravinsky didn't like Shostakovich's music, but you'd need to ask him for further details. That contradicts what you say, but I know that the two men met on Stravinsky's tour of Russia in the early 1960's, so perphaps it was okay. A major falling out only happens when musicians refuse to meet, talk or correspond in any way. I remember reading a quote by Stravinsky commenting on Shostakovich's depressive state at the time they met.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Mahlerian said Stravinsky didn't like Shostakovich's music, but you'd need to ask him for further details. That contradicts what you say, but I know that the two men met on Stravinsky's tour of Russia in the early 1960's, so perphaps it was okay. A major falling out only happens when musicians refuse to meet, talk or correspond in any way. I remember reading a quote by Stravinsky commenting on Shostakovich's depressive state at the time they met.


I had in mind things like the following, from his private correspondence.

"The work is lamentably provincial, the music plays a miserable role as illustrator, in a very embarrassing realistic style...I regret being so hard on Shostakovich, but he has deeply disappointed me, intellectually and musically. I regret it the more because his [First] Symphony favorably impressed me two years ago, and I expected something very different from a man of twenty-seven. Lady Macbeth is not the work of a musician, but it is surely the product of a total indifference toward music in the country of the Soviets."

Stravinsky, in a letter to Ernest Ansermet, 1935 (as quoted in Brown p286-287)


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

According to Khachaturian the 1962(?) meeting between the two men was predictably somewhat tense at first - both seemed either unwilling to, or incapable of, getting the conversational ball rolling. The ice was apparently only eventually broken when DS cautiously asked IS what he thought of Puccini and IS replied that he couldn't stand him. DS: 'Oh, neither can I, neither can I...'. Common ground eventually attained at the expense of someone else! :lol:


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I had in mind things like the following, from his private correspondence.
> 
> "The work is lamentably provincial, the music plays a miserable role as illustrator, in a very embarrassing realistic style...I regret being so hard on Shostakovich, but he has deeply disappointed me, intellectually and musically. I regret it the more because his [First] Symphony favorably impressed me two years ago, and I expected something very different from a man of twenty-seven. Lady Macbeth is not the work of a musician, but it is surely the product of a total indifference toward music in the country of the Soviets."
> 
> Stravinsky, in a letter to Ernest Ansermet, 1935 (as quoted in Brown p286-287)


But that was back then. Was he aware of Shostakovitch's 'situation'?

I wonder what he thought about the string quarters or the prelude and fugues, or the least Stalinistic of his works. The world was taken by his first symphony, which made him world famous if I recall correctly, no just Stravinsky.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From what I've read, Shostakovich regarded Stravinsky as a truly great composer (the feeling was not reciprocated) but complained that Igor couldn't write a decent transition but simply stopped one idea and began another.

Shostakovich presented Stravinsky with a copy of his piano version of the Symphony of Psalms when the latter visited the USSR in 1962. But Stravinsky is said to have treated him with "cruelty." I've never seen any details of this, but it may be due to Shostakovich's endorsement of the Party line against Stravinsky when he was in New York in 1949. As if he had any real choice!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> From what I've read, Shostakovich regarded Stravinsky as a truly great composer (the feeling was not reciprocated) but complained that Igor couldn't write a decent transition but simply stopped one idea and began another.
> 
> Shostakovich presented Stravinsky with a copy of his piano version of the Symphony of Psalms when the latter visited the USSR in 1962. But Stravinsky is said to have treated him with "cruelty." I've never seen any details of this, but it may be due to Shostakovich's endorsement of the Party line against Stravinsky when he was in New York in 1949. As if he had any real choice!


Stravinsky the composer I curtsey to. Stravinsky the man I 'cut direct.'

He was such the _faux_ aristocrat. It was beneath him to teach music to earn a living but of course not above him to wear a monocle and to live off of Coco Chanel's largesse- bless her heart.

He snubbed Shosty?

Imagine how I'd treat him at the cotillion.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Shostakovich recalls (in _Testimony_) Stravinsky's return to visit the USSR in 1962 at 80 years old: "Stravinsky hadn't forgotten anything -- that he had been called a lackey of American imperialism and a flunky of the Catholic Church -- and the very same people who had called him that were now greeting him with outspread arms. Stravinsky offered his walking stick instead of his hand to one of those hypocrites, who was forced to shake it, proving that he was the real lackey."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Lucifer Saudade said:


> But that was back then. Was he aware of Shostakovitch's 'situation'?
> 
> I wonder what he thought about the string quarters or the prelude and fugues, or the least Stalinistic of his works. The world was taken by his first symphony, which made him world famous if I recall correctly, no just Stravinsky.


Well, this was before the first denunciations had even occurred. I don't think Shostakovich was aware of his own situation yet in 1935. As for what followed, I don't know to what extent Stravinsky may have understood how difficult life was for an artist in the Soviet Union, but I am not sure it would have affected his perspective on the music much if he had, being the formalist par excellance.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mahlerian said:


> I had in mind things like the following, from his private correspondence.
> 
> "The work is lamentably provincial, the music plays a miserable role as illustrator, in a very embarrassing realistic style...I regret being so hard on Shostakovich, but he has deeply disappointed me, intellectually and musically. I regret it the more because his [First] Symphony favorably impressed me two years ago, and I expected something very different from a man of twenty-seven. Lady Macbeth is not the work of a musician, but it is surely the product of a total indifference toward music in the country of the Soviets."
> 
> Stravinsky, in a letter to Ernest Ansermet, 1935 (as quoted in Brown p286-287)


Thanks, but you are in effect answering millionrainbows. I didn't require sources, in fact I prefer the forum not to be some pseudo academic journal or court of law. That's even though there is no harm in giving sources. I was simply rebutting what millions said in light of what you said, which I accepted without need for a source. It was to challenge millions' argument, which contradicted what you said.

I'll leave it at that, as well as this thread, except to say that the tone row that Stravinsky stole was from Britten's Turn of the Screw, and he used it in The Flood. Bye bye and have fun with this, guys!


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

I think that Stravinsky was nuts.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Sid James said:


> ...
> I'll leave it at that, as well as this thread, except to say that the tone row that Stravinsky stole was from Britten's Turn of the Screw, and he used it in The Flood. Bye bye and have fun with this, guys!


Just forgot to add Stravinsky's homophobia. He made a quip that went something like the recitals of aunty Britten and uncle Pears.

But, OldFashionedGirl, he wasn't nuts, just a brilliant composer (and a pretty good wit) who was beneath all that bravado a very insecure person.

Speaking to his wit I thought I'd take the time to give some anecdotes - whether apocryphal or not can be debated - from a humorous book of such things I've got, as collected by Leslie Ayre published in the 1960's.

_After Stravinsky had written Scenes de Ballet for the Broadway production Seven Lively Arts, impresario Billy Rose sent him a wire:
YOUR MUSIC GREAT SUCCESS COULD BE SENSATIONAL SUCCESS IF YOU WOULD AUTHORISE ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT RETOUCH ORCHESTRATION STOP BENNETT ORCHESTRATES EVEN THE WORKS OF COLE PORTER. Stravinsky wired back: SATISFIED WITH GREAT SUCCESS.

"The schwienerei said I imitated Mozart. Imitated! To Hell! I stole Mozart!"

Not so long ago it was suggested to Stravinsky that he charged very high fees for his appearances and for the performance of his works. 'I do it,' he said, 'on behalf of my brother composers, Schubert and Mozart, who died in poverty.'

Mrs Vera Newman, widow of the critic Ernest Newman, tells a Stravinsky story: 'It was a lovely party, Stravinsky was one of the guests and he sat next to me at dinner. He caused a good deal of amusement when he took my hand and, beginning at the tips of the fingers, he kissed my hand and arm.
'Suddenly, having arrived nearly at the elbow, he dropped my arm as though it were red-hot, and said: "Oh, I forgot, your husband doesn't like my music!"' ('Ernst Newman: a memoir' by Vera Newman)_

But have fun guys, with just looking at one side of history and using it for an agenda. I will from now on ONLY post on current listening thread (classical and non-c) as well as the L'enfer tribute thread. People can hold me to it if they wish. As I was told implicitly numerous times during 2013-14, and also in recent weeks, that my input into these more controversial threads is of limited value so I now bow down to my lords on this forum and proudly accept that I am just a pleb. Funny how the Magna Carta was signed 800 years ago, last week was the anniversary. When will we have such a document for classical music to bring it out of the dark ages? My answer is NEVER, it is inherently elitist!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Sid James said:


> Just forgot to add Stravinsky's homophobia. He made a quip that went something like the recitals of aunty Britten and uncle Pears.
> 
> But, OldFashionedGirl, he wasn't nuts, just a brilliant composer (and a pretty good wit) who was beneath all that bravado a very insecure person.
> 
> ...


Stravinsky always inclined to be the aristocrat, but I think his keen intellect and piquant wit often blinded him to the bourgeois he really was at heart.

His insensitivity and ingratitude is legendary. He lived with Rimsky-Korsakov's family for a time- and then paid the great Russian master back by stealing from him: listen to Stravinsky's "Infernal Dance" from _The Firebird_ and then listen to Rimsky-Korsakov's "Infernal Dance" from Act III of his ballet-opera _Mlada_- then you'll understand why Rimsky-Korsakov's son never again spoke to Stravinksy after the _première_ of _The Firebird_.

Stravinsky also told people that he knew of the young Markevitch's homosexuality because he once saw him coming out of Diaghilev's sleeping compartment on a train.

I mean, what kind of a Tom Ripley would even care about such indiscretion?

Stravinsky's behaves more like an arrogant valet than one who runs with the swift.









_
"Igor, how's the peeping?"_


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^That's interesting, Marschallin Blair, but as usual from certain participants in this debate, the silence is defeaning. Whatever he was as a human being, I can accept that to some degree. Let's face it, there where many composers who weren't Florence Nightingales. On my scale of composers who where kind of difficult to say the least, he's up there with Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Boulez to name the ones that come readily to mind. 

But even Britten was no saint, its often noted how difficult he was to work with. For example he only used each librettist once, even though many of his operas where successful and a sequel with the same collaborator would be a natural thing to expect. 

To rubbish someone is perhaps fine, but to do that and then steal from them - or at least be in some way in debt to them - is just being an opportunist. As I said though, the composers who where like this tended to be also very insecure beneath all the extreme opportunism, mysogyny, racism, amorality or whatever. 

Its no big deal to talk about this, but again I am speaking to a massive brick wall of formalism and other unbiased biases here. I'm being UnModernist by doing this, only those listeners who are caricatured as dinosaurs are supposed to. Its like I've crossed the floor of parliament and voted for the party in opposition.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Sid James said:


> Thanks, but you are in effect answering millionrainbows. I didn't require sources, in fact I prefer the forum not to be some pseudo academic journal or court of law. That's even though there is no harm in giving sources. I was simply rebutting what millions said in light of what you said, which I accepted without need for a source. It was to challenge millions' argument, which contradicted what you said.
> 
> I'll leave it at that, as well as this thread, except to say that the tone row that Stravinsky stole was from Britten's Turn of the Screw, and he used it in The Flood. Bye bye and have fun with this, guys!


Reading references are as much for pleasure as they are for elucidation and validation in a quote. Personally, I'm sad to see you dip out because of your contributions so far. Of course who knows how long your urge to participate will override this desire, hopefully for a little while longer. And as far as I'm concerned you're no wild opposition voter, of which sentiment I'm sure a number here would agree, although you seem to have a certain flair for melodrama 

Shows how far I am out of my depth in this particular discussion, that I wasn't even aware that Stravinsky lived with Korsakov.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Sid James said:


> ^^That's interesting, Marschallin Blair, but as usual from certain participants in this debate, the silence is defeaning. Whatever he was as a human being, I can accept that to some degree. Let's face it, there where many composers who weren't Florence Nightingales. On my scale of composers who where kind of difficult to say the least, he's up there with Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Boulez to name the ones that come readily to mind.
> 
> But even Britten was no saint, its often noted how difficult he was to work with. For example he only used each librettist once, even though many of his operas where successful and a sequel with the same collaborator would be a natural thing to expect.
> 
> ...


Hi Sid. _;D_

It amusing to me that these people who'd tar and feather others with the moribund-and-reactionary 'dinosaur' brush are the very same people who call themselves 'Modernists' (because they don't like to be called 'Atonalists'- because 'antonality' to them quite simply doesn't exist).

But I submit: How is listening to music from almost a century ago "Modernist"?

I believe a better sobriquet would be "Atonalists."


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Lukecash12 said:


> Reading references are as much for pleasure as they are for elucidation and validation in a quote. Personally, I'm sad to see you dip out because of your contributions so far. Of course who knows how long your urge to participate will override this desire, hopefully for a little while longer. And as far as I'm concerned you're no wild opposition voter, of which sentiment I'm sure a number here would agree, although you seem to have a certain flair for melodrama
> 
> Shows how far I am out of my depth in this particular discussion, that I wasn't even aware that Stravinsky lived with Korsakov.


Stravinsky said so in his own words in an interview with Robert Craft.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Hi Sid. _;D_
> 
> It amusing to me that these people who'd tar and feather others with the moribund-and-reactionary 'dinosaur' brush are the very same people who call themselves 'Modernists' (because they don't like to be called 'Atonalists'- because 'antonality' to them quite simply doesn't exist).
> 
> ...


I don't call myself a modernist.

I simply like great music.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I don't call myself a modernist.
> 
> I simply like great music.


I know you do, Mahlerian.

And your manners are impeccable.

I was actually directing my criticism to a more fervent group of people.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Mahlerian said Stravinsky didn't like Shostakovich's music, but you'd need to ask him for further details. That contradicts what you say, but I know that the two men met on Stravinsky's tour of Russia in the early 1960's, so perphaps it was okay. A major falling out only happens when musicians refuse to meet, talk or correspond in any way. I remember reading a quote by Stravinsky commenting on Shostakovich's depressive state at the time they met.


I was talking about Stravinsky not dissing *Rachmaninov. *I can see why anyone might not like Shosty because of his conservatism. I like him, though, for what he is. I get in moods for him.


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## suntower (Mar 29, 2015)

Couldn't agree more. That one quote from his (cough) 'autobiography' (Music can express nothing) was classic Stravinsky. He was like Andy Warhol. He lied whenever it made good press to do so. I think it was all a joke to him.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Imagine if people would sift through the comments you made on this forum. That might give an impression of what we are doing here


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Shostakovich recalls (in _Testimony_) Stravinsky's return to visit the USSR in 1962 at 80 years old: "Stravinsky hadn't forgotten anything -- that he had been called a lackey of American imperialism and a flunky of the Catholic Church -- and the very same people who had called him that were now greeting him with outspread arms. Stravinsky offered his walking stick instead of his hand to one of those hypocrites, who was forced to shake it, proving that he was the real lackey."


In one book I have it states that this particular 'hypocrite' was Tikhon Khrennikov, although this must have been related to DSCH as he was in Leningrad at the time Stravinsky touched down at Sheremetevo.

As Stravinsky stood in the hatchway of the plane and inhaled his first Russian air for 50 years he bowed deeply to the people gathered at the bottom of the landing stairs. Stravinsky was allegedly very keen on meeting Shostakovich: Khachaturian related that Stravinsky half-jokingly accused the younger man of running away from him when he heard that DSCH had travelled from Leningrad to Moscow at the same time Stravinsky was making the journey in the opposite direction!


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## miroirs (Jan 5, 2015)

Interesting here, a number of factual errors. Stravinsky _did_ dismiss Schoenberg, very much because of his disregard of tonality. Stravinsky referred to Schoenberg as an 'inventor' rather than a composer. Stravinsky then adopted atonality after Schoenberg's death, mainly because he wanted respect from younger composers (Boulez and his group thought his neo-classicism was going nowhere).

Also, Stravinsky's homophobia, which is true, was for covering up his own bisexuality. He slept on a fairly regular basis with Ravel, and others. There is a report of Stravinsky and Bernstein...

I personally love a select few of his works. The rest, in my opinion, are not up to standards. I recognise Turangalila and the same level of musical integrity as the Rite of Spring. I like his dissonant neo-classicism but cannot stand Apollon, Pulcinella etc. His atonality just doesn't do it for me.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

miroirs said:


> Interesting here, a number of factual errors. Stravinsky _did_ dismiss Schoenberg, very much because of his disregard of tonality. Stravinsky referred to Schoenberg as an 'inventor' rather than a composer. Stravinsky then adopted atonality after Schoenberg's death, mainly because he wanted respect from younger composers (Boulez and his group thought his neo-classicism was going nowhere).


Stravinsky was one of the many who were entranced by Pierrot lunaire in its very successful early run of performances. It is true that he spoke against Schoenberg and his school during his Neoclassical period, but in his later period, after he encounted Robert Craft, he recognized Schoenberg as a master and a great composer. When Stravinsky adopted serialism, he maintained that in a very real sense his music was still tonal because the harmonic direction came prior to the filling in of content.

Stravinsky's reasons for adopting serialism are probably more related to a desire to keep fresh and reinvent himself, as he had done in the past, than to please Boulez and the Darmstadt composers, who pretty much continued to disdain Stravinsky's new music just as they had his Neoclassical work. Even after he broke with Boulez following the disastrous premiere of Threni, he continued to write in a 12-tone serial style.



miroirs said:


> Also, Stravinsky's homophobia, which is true, was for covering up his own bisexuality. He slept on a fairly regular basis with Ravel, and others. There is a report of Stravinsky and Bernstein...


I thought this was a rumor. Either way, it's not really important to the question of his music.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> {Re Stravinsky bisexuality}I thought this was a rumor. Either way, it's not really important to the question of his music.


"Despite these alleged liaisons, Stravinsky was considered a family man and devoted to his children." -- Wikipedia referenced

That sounds a little guarded to me. I'm convinced Igor was a switch-hitter, but as you say, it shouldn't have any listening influence.


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