Igor Stravinsky Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Igor Stravinsky - Essay physical exerciseStravinsky left Russia for the first of all time in 1910, going to Paris to attend the premiere of his ballet Loiseau de feu (The Firebird) (Craft 20). During his remain in the city, he composed three major works for the Ballets Russes-Loiseau de feu, Petrushka (1911), and Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913). Eventually Stravinskys medicament was noticed by Serge Diaghilev, the director of the Ballets Russes in Paris. He commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet for his flying field so in 1911, Stravinsky traveled to Paris. That ballet ended up being the famous LOiseau de Feu. However, because of World fight I and the October Revolution in Russia he moved to Switzerland in 1914.The first of Stravinskys major stylistic plosive speech sounds (excluding rough early minor works) was inaugurated by the three ballets he composed for Diaghilev. The ballets have several sh atomic number 18d characteristics they are scored for ext remely larger-than-life orchestras they use Russian folk themes and motifs and they bear the mark of Rimsky-Korsakovs imaginative scoring and instrumentation.The first of the ballets, Loiseau de feu, is notable for its unusual introduction (triplets in the low basses) and sweeping orchestration. Petrushka, too, is distinctively scored and the first of Stravinskys ballets to draw on folk mythology. But it is the third ballet, The Rite of Spring that is generally considered the apotheosis of Stravinskys Russian Period (Hill 45-46). early(a) pieces from this period include Renard (1916), Histoire du soldat (A Soldiers Tale) (1918), and Les Noces (The Wedding) (1923).The next phase of Stravinskys compositional style, slightly overlapping the first, is marked by both works Pulcinella 1920 and the Octet (1923) for wind instruments. Both of these works feature what was to become a hallmark of this period that is, Stravinskys return, or looking back, to the classical practice of medicin e of Mozart and Bach and their contemporaries. This neo-classical style involved the abandonment of the large orchestras demanded by the ballets. In these new works, scripted roughly between 1920 and 1950, Stravinsky turns largely to wind instruments, the piano, and choral and chamber works.Some larger works from this period are the three symphonies the Symphonie des Psaumes (Symphony of Psalms) (1930), Symphony in C (1940) and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). The pinnacle of this period is the opera The Rakes Progress completed in 1951. This opera, written to a libretto by Auden and based on the etchings of Hogarth, encapsulates everything that Stravinsky had perfected in the previous 20 years of his neo-classic period. The music is direct but quirky it borrows from classic tonal harmony but also interjects surprising dissonances it features Stravinskys stylemark off-rhythms and it harkens back to the operas and themes of Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart.The Serialist, or Twelve T one PeriodStravinsky first began to dabble in the twelve caliber technique in smaller vocal works such as the Cantata (1952), Three Songs from Shakespeare (1953) and In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954), as if he were testing the system. He later began