Karajan's Le Sacre du Printemps as trashed by Stravinsky
Michael Schaffer
trashed?
Is it this one:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001GBZ/qid=1124340685/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_12/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
I know this is the later recording from the 70s:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/rate-this-asin-box-frame-content/-/B00000E33T/music/ATVPDKIKX0DER/103-7123162-5945469
And I think this one is also the later recording in a different
coupling:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004R7X4/qid=1124340685/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_13/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
I have heard both recordings on LP. They are quite different.
Apparently Karajan took Stravinsky's criticism seriously and rethought
his interpretation.
I would like to compare them again, so I need to figure out if the
earlier ("evil") recording is available on CD, and which one it is.
BTW, does anyone know if the complete text of Stravinsky's review is
available somewhere online? I didn't find it.
Michael Schaffer
http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/forum/?m=4654
Steven de Mena
"Michael Schaffer" <ms1...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1124341771....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Which is the recording of Le Sacre made during the 60s that Stravinsky
> trashed?
> Is it this one:
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001GBZ/qid=1124340685/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_12/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
>
> I know this is the later recording from the 70s:
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/rate-this-asin-box-frame-content/-/B00000E33T/music/ATVPDKIKX0DER/103-7123162-5945469
>
> And I think this one is also the later recording in a different
> coupling:
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004R7X4/qid=1124340685/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_13/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
The last one (with Prokofiev 5) is the 1964 recording that I believe
Stravinsky slammed. I would buy this one (versus the first one you listed,
which I guess is also the 64 recording) as it (presumably) has been
remastered for the "Originals" series.
Steve
Steven de Mena
Interesting.
Steve
Michael Schaffer
Yes, indeed. Very critical, but actually not as harshly negative at all
as it is often suggested.
Michael Schaffer
I thought the one coupled with Prokofiev 5 was the later recording from
the 70s...? Or not?
The one coupled with Apollon is actually the later one, isn't it?
Vaneyes
Michael Schaffer wrote:
>
> I thought the one coupled with Prokofiev 5 was the later recording from
> the 70s...? Or not?
> The one coupled with Apollon is actually the later one, isn't it?
The DG Originals is '77. The DG Privilege or Classikon is '64...also
available in the DG 100 Masterpieces series.
The '64 is the one to get. Forget about what Stravinsky said.
Regards
Steven de Mena
"Michael Schaffer" <ms1...@gmail.com> wrote in message >> The last one (with
>> Stravinsky slammed. I would buy this one (versus the first one you
>> listed,
>> which I guess is also the 64 recording) as it (presumably) has been
>> remastered for the "Originals" series.
>>
>> Steve
>
> I thought the one coupled with Prokofiev 5 was the later recording from
> the 70s...? Or not?
> The one coupled with Apollon is actually the later one, isn't it?
>
I am now finding conflicting information on that Prokofiev 5th / Stravinsky
CD.
This Gramphone review would suggest it is the 70's performance:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/gramofilereview.asp?reviewID=12026&mediaID=187466&issue=Reviewed%3A+Gramophone+12%2F2000
There's a 2 CD set as part of the DG "Panorama" series that also has a
Karajan BPO Rite of Spring.
The 2nd link in your email didn't work for me so I could only see the 1st
and 3rd recordings. I assume the 2nd link is the CD that has the original
Rite of Spring 1970's LP cover (picture of the sky) with Apollon musagete
addded.
Steve
david...@aol.com
My guess is that Karajan never saw Stravinsky's review, although it's
not impossible that somebody saw it and forwarded to him.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
>Very critical, but actually not as harshly negative at all as it is often suggested.
Actually, the Karajan review is excerpted from a review of three
recordings, and at the end of the collective review Stravinsky remarks
that none of the three is good enough to be preserved.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
the Karajan recording deserves to be quoted in full, since few rmcr-ers
will have had the patience to wade through the entirety of a review
full of specific details that require score and recording to be fully
intelligible. Here it is:)
The recording is generally good, the performance generally odd, though
polished in its own way; in fact, too polished, a pet savage rather
than a real one. The sostenuto [smoothly sustained] style is a
principal fault; the lengths of notes are virtually the same here as
they would be in Wagner or Brahms, which dampens the energy of the
music and leaves what rhythmic enunciation there is sounding laboured.
But I should have begun by saying that the music is alien to the
culture of its performers. Schoenberg recognized it as an assault on
the Central European tradition, saying that it made him think of 'those
savage black potentates who wear only a cravat and a top hat'. (When
told, in 1925, that I had declared his 'twelve-tone system' to be a
dead end - a Sackgasse [dead end or blind alley]- he replied with the
pun: 'Es gibt keine sackere Gasse als 'Sacre'. [There is no blinder
alley than the Sacre.]') But I doubt whether The Rite can be
satisfactorily performed in terms of Herr von Karajan's traditions. I
do not mean to imply that he is out of his depths, however, but rather
that he is in my shallows - or call them simple concretions and
reifications. There are simply no regions for soul-searching in The
Rite of Spring.
-Igor Stravinsky
Raymond Hall
news:1124348855.3...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
IS was a miserable old sod. Little satisfied him.
Ray H
Taree
alanwa...@aol.com
I have an LP of Stravinsky conducting Rite (CBS I think) and apart from
the fact that the finale is rather fast, I thought it was a bit bland
to be honest.
I wonder if Stravinsky ever commented on Bernstein's recording with the
New York Philharmonic: I would have thought that would have been far
closer to the score than the Karajan he obviously thought missed the
boat. I think the Bernstein is a very good performance but there are
probably hundreds of others I do not know.
Mind you, I don't think Stravinsky liked Stokowski's arrangement for
Fantasia although paradoxically it probably introduced more people to
the music (those poor old dinosaurs trudging along) than any of the
rest of them put together!
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
david...@aol.com
And you base this opinion on what? I hope on more than one review.
What of his rave reviews of the late Beethoven quartets, the Magic
Flute, Carter's Double Concerto, Rosbaud's performances, Bach, Debussy,
etc. etc. etc. What about his eagerness to get out of the bed in the
morning (something I don't share) and his curiosity?
-david gable
david...@aol.com
You really have to hear all of Stravinsky's recordings of the Rite
(none of which satisfied him). The stereo recording was one of the
last performances he gave before he became physically unable even to
conduct the piece, and it still has many virtues. In any case, the
physical or technical ability for Stravinsky to realize the piece to
his own satisfaction at the podium is not a prerequisite for
recognizing the adequacy of somebody else's performance.
-=david gable
alanwa...@aol.com
I am sure what you say may well be the case but in the only two
comparisons I can make it appears to me to be Bernstein who most picks
up on at least a few of the points which form part of the basis for the
composer's criticism of the Karajan recording. And, whatever the
reason, I think Bernstein's performance has the better orchestral
playing. Of course, as I say, I have not heard all the Stravinsky
recordings.
Raymond Hall
news:1124355302....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Based not on reviews, but on biographies, and other texts. Much of what I
was referring to applied to performances of his OWN works by others. I
haven't meant my comment to apply to IS's views about other composer's
music.
Besides which, getting out of bed in the morning, and having a healthy
curiousity, has nothing whatsover to do with IS being miserable or not.
Ray H
Taree
William Sommerwerck
> Fantasia although paradoxically it probably introduced more people to
> the music (those poor old dinosaurs trudging along) than any of the
> rest of them put together!
The movie itself -- which Stravinsky categorized as "an uprotesting
imbecility" -- probably did more than anything else in the US to get people
interested in classical music.
I, too, have never thought much of Stravinsky's "intelligence". But he wrote
a lot of great music, so what difference does it make?
Alex
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1124348673....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
He certainly did see the review/essay and acted on it.
Ian Pace
"William Sommerwerck" <gizzle...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:aIidnZ2dnZ21ZeXDnZ2dn...@comcast.com...
his judgement in all matters be questioned?
Ian
William Sommerwerck
>> he wrote a lot of great music, so what difference does it make?
> Well, considering his expressed views on Mussolini and fascism,
> shouldn't his judgement in all matters be questioned?
Perhaps, but we don't choose the music we listen to on such a basis.
Ian Pace
objectivist, anti-subjective tendencies as a composer and his admiration for
a dehumanising ideology like fascism (and the same goes for Ezra Pound and
numerous others)?
Ian
Simon Roberts
david...@aol.com says...
What were the other two?
Simon
Michael Schaffer
Privilege or Classikon don't seem to be available anymore, even used.
Is this one here
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001GBZ/qid=1124340685/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_12/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
the 64 or 77?
Michael Schaffer
Yes, it was this one here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000E33T/qid=1124375223/sr=1-21/ref=sr_1_21/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
definitely the 70s recording. The Gramophone review is pretty explicit
about the Originals being the 77 one. I will see in a few days, I
ordered the disc last night.
sle...@online.no
I agree in principle. (Not having heard Karajan). Stravinsky's
opinion should not be given more weight than that of other people, if
that is what you are saying. Perhaps even less. He is too involved, in
a way. Prejudiced, so to speak. Seeing these comments makes me feel
happy that the vast majority of great composers are dead. Bach and
Beethoven would probably not have accepted much of what happened to
their works during the centuries, neither stylistically nor in detail.
And we would probably find the old style stiff and boring.
In a way, when a composition leaves a composer, it begins to live a
life of its own. The different interpretations become part of its
biography, part of the work itself, so to speak. Ideally a composer
who is still around should shut up and go on composing other stuff.
A performer may see important aspects of a composition that the
composer himself did not see. Inspiration can be a strange state of
mind, in the same way that a dream can be much wiser than the one who
dreams it, and the composer may be better than he himself thought. (or
sometimes worse). Klemperer performs the Symphony in Three Movements
better than Stravinsky, as does Goosens, and not necessarily only
because their conducting technique is better. (Not that Stravinsky
conducts that bad, but one gets a bit tired of this never ending
staccato style).
Michael Schaffer
I seem to recall that Stravinsky liked Bernstein's recording a lot and
commented on it with "wow!"
I wonder if he put other recordings down though because he wanted to
pitch his own? Whatever, his opinion must be taken seriously since he
was the composer, bad mood swings or not. I think his description of
the stylistic background of the Karajan recording is right on the mark.
Even though that approach may not be the really authentic one, that's
what actually makes it intersting for me. I like to listen to
interpretations which come from a different stylistical perspective
just as I like the interpretations which come from the "right"
tradition.
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:1124357162.904810.150390
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:
> david...@aol.com wrote:
>> You really have to hear all of Stravinsky's recordings of the Rite
>> (none of which satisfied him). The stereo recording was one of the
>> last performances he gave before he became physically unable even to
>> conduct the piece, and it still has many virtues. In any case, the
>> physical or technical ability for Stravinsky to realize the piece to
>> his own satisfaction at the podium is not a prerequisite for
>> recognizing the adequacy of somebody else's performance.
>
> I am sure what you say may well be the case but in the only two
> comparisons I can make it appears to me to be Bernstein who most picks
> up on at least a few of the points which form part of the basis for the
> composer's criticism of the Karajan recording. And, whatever the
> reason, I think Bernstein's performance has the better orchestral
> playing. Of course, as I say, I have not heard all the Stravinsky
> recordings.
Was it Bernstein's (obviously earlier) recording which elicited a snide
"Wow!" from Stravinsky?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Hey spammers, look what happened to Vardan Kushnir. You're next!
david...@aol.com
>Stravinsky's opinion should not be given more weight than that of other people
It shouldn't? Not when it comes to your choosing a performance,
perhaps. But he did know a thing or two about his own piece. In any
case, should Stravinsky or any other critic refrain from pointing out
the kinds of specific details that Stravinsky points out? The trouble
with most reviewers is that they don't have the knowledge,
intelligence, experience, and training necessary to make such kinds of
detailed criticisms.
In any case, the whole thrust of the review is extremely interesting,
which is its ultimate justification. By which I mean Stravinsky's
recognition of and discussion of the specific differences in style
between Le sacre and a particular late German Romantic sostenuto style.
>Ideally a composer who is still around should shut up and go on composing other stuff.
This is absurd. You're allowed to go on talking about The Rite and
Stravinsky isn't? You don't think he's going to react when he hears a
recording of the Rite? You don't think he's entitled to express his
reaction?
>(Not that Stravinsky conducts that bad, but one gets a bit tired of this never ending staccato style.
But Stravinsky's style is a "never ending staccato style." The
staccato attack (and several different kinds of staccato attack) is as
intrinsic to Stravinsky's style as sostenuto strings are intrinsic to
Brahms's. Better listen to somebody else if you're sick of the style.
What do you do when you get sick of the intense bright colors in the
fauve period Matisse? Put a thin coat of tranlucent grey paint over
the paintings to tone down the colors?
-david gable
david...@aol.com
Don't take Ian's blanket condemnation of Stravinsky at face value.
Better investigate for yourself before you silence Stravinsky by
stamping the word fascist on his forehead. People are imperfect and
multi-faceted, and their views change over time.
Many people in Europe were taken in at first by Mussolini's fascist
party including all of the vanguard Italian painters because Europeans
had experienced chaos and the horrors of the bloodiest war in European
history first hand: the fascists seemed to offer a shiny new modern
style of law and order along with a perenially seductive "national
pride." Italian fascism seemed to be an emanation of the new machine
age that was going to liberate man from poverty, hunger, and hard
labor. A "White Russian," Stravinsky himself had a lifelong fear of
anarchy in part because of terrorist bombings by Russian anarchists
before the Russian revolution.
The only evidence we have of Stravinsky's "fascism" is an
enthusiastic remark he made about Mussolini in the early 30's. Later
Stravinsky fled Europe when he saw first hand what was happening in
Germany. He even experienced a terrifying moment in a German café
when Nazi thugs who came in to vandalize the place mistook him for a
Jew. With its brutal programmatic depiction of goose-stepping
soldiers, the Symphony in Three Movements, written in the United States
in the mid-40's, was a kind of anti-fascist and anti-war manifesto,
and anti-war not in the sense of a general philosophical pacifism but
in the sense of "opposed to fascist-style war mongering."
-david gable
david...@aol.com
>I, too, have never thought much of Stravinsky's "intelligence".
I'm curious what evidence of Stravinsky's "intelligence" one way or
another you have other than his music. I have great respect for
Stravinsky's intelligence myself.
-david gable
MrT
intelligent, as well as a great intuitive and a great methodical. Good
and rare combination...
Best,
MrT
david...@aol.com
>getting out of bed in the morning, and having a healthy curiousity, has nothing whatsover to do with IS being miserable or not.
On the contrary, greeting the fresh new day with enthusiasm and
greeting life with an unending curiosity are the strongest evidence
that one is not miserable.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
>I don't think Stravinsky liked Stokowski's arrangement for Fantasia
Firebird, Petrushka, and Rite of Spring were all unprotected by
copyright because the Tsarist government never signed certain
international copyright agreements and was then replaced by an entirely
different regime. When Disney (or his agent) approached Stravinsky
with the proposal that Le sacre be used in Fantasia, it was suggested
that Stravinsky sign the agreement and accept a modest sum in payment
because Disney was going to use the RIte with or without Stravinsky's
approval. In part because of the sleazey character of the approach,
Stravinsky refused to grant his approval.
-david gable
rkhalona
recordings, and at the end of the collective review Stravinsky remarks
that none of the three is good enough to be preserved.
-david gable >>
Composers don't always know best when it comes to their own music.
Stravisnky's stereo recordings of his own music and among the blandest
I know.
RK
rkhalona
Ray H
Taree >>
When no money was involved, *nothing* satisfied him.
RK
rkhalona
copyright because the Tsarist government never signed certain
international copyright agreements and was then replaced by an entirely
different regime. When Disney (or his agent) approached Stravinsky
with the proposal that Le sacre be used in Fantasia, it was suggested
that Stravinsky sign the agreement and accept a modest sum in payment
because Disney was going to use the RIte with or without Stravinsky's
approval. In part because of the sleazey character of the approach,
Stravinsky refused to grant his approval.
-david gable >>
Although I would never be a defender of Disney (a company I have come
to detest),
if the approach was as you describe, Disney was quite honorable. IS
was going to get nothing,
and at least he was asked and offered what I assume was the going rate.
Stravinsky was a money grubber (in Nathan Milstein's words, not mine --
see his memoir "From Russia
to the West).
RK
david...@aol.com
The composer isn't always able--doesn't always have the technical
proficiency--to realize in performance what he hears in his head. That
doesn't mean that he can't hear what's going on in other people's
performances. Nor are Stravinsky's late studio performances the only
performances he ever gave, and a few of his earlier performances have
survived, including the Tchaikovsky symphony from the 40's issued in a
set released by the NY Phil. Finally, it depends on which of the
stereo recordings you're talking about. From the early 60's on,
Stravinsky was no longer physically able to conduct most of his own
music including Le sacre. That's why Craft conducted the premieres of
the very late works. Something like Le baiser de la fee, on the other
hand, Stravinsky could still conduct even after he had given up doing
Le sacre. Personally, I have rarely heard a Stravinsky performance
that I thought was bland. In many cases, I'd prefer something better,
but rare indeed is the Stravinsky performance from anybody else that
has the true Stravinsky flavor, even if there is more polish,
virtuosity, and other evidence of a greater technical security.
At least Bernstein's performances have energy and personality, and
Monteux and Markevitch and probably Fricsay were able to do the music
justice. So was Craft: the Variations for Orchestra with the CSO is
not to be believed. But Columbia always wanted to get something for
nothing and rarely gave Stravinsky or Craft adequate ensembles or
adequate rehearsal time.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
You knew him well enough to state this with such absolute authority,
Ramon?
-david gable
rkhalona
Milstein and many others thought the same.
RK
david...@aol.com
and acted on it. That's certainly possible, but you'll have to show me
more evidence than the fact that a later recording differs from the
recording reviewed. Did Karajan tell you he saw the review? Did you
read somewhere that Karajan saw the review? On what basis do you make
your claim? I'd be extremely fascinated to hear more if you're
correct. Meanwhile, I remain skeptical.
-david gable
sle...@online.no
the composer should stick his nose into other peoples performances.
Sooner or later he will be dead anyway, and it was also better for us
if he spent his time writing more masterworks. (He cannot be forbidden
to speak, of course, so I used the word "ideally").
When it comes to Stravinsky's obsession with the rhythmic aspect of
his works, and the resulting accentuation of the staccato (when he is
conducting), it may be a weakness, and even sound a tad amateurish. The
listener should not hear theses elements so clearly standing out, they
should be much more an integral part of the whole thing, as I see it.
The rhythmic patterns should not be noticed as such, they simply should
be there. Klemperer (or Karajan) is probably as superior before
Stravinsky as conductors as Stravinsky is superior to Klemperer as a
composer.
david...@aol.com
>As I said in a separate post, don't take my word for it. Milstein and many others thought the same.
And how many times did their paths cross? Once or less? Milstein
didn't know Stravinsky. He was never an intimate of Stravinsky's.
Stravinsky himself joked about his attitude toward money. During his
American years, he was fond of signing I S with the S over the I so
that the result was a dollar sign. When asked about the sale of a
Monet painting in the 60's for more money than anyone had ever paid for
a painting before, Stravinsky remarked that the sale "showed a lack of
respect for the true value of money."
Craft has written a bit about Stravinsky's attitude toward money.
Stravinsky's relationship to his father, a successful opera singer, was
a distant one, and his father was reluctant to support Stravinsky when
Stravinsky was student. The old man wanted Stravinsky to become a
lawyer, not a composer, and Stravinsky actually entered law school.
Stravinsky found the Rimsky family more warm and welcoming than his
own. Later Stravinsky lost everything in the Russian Revolution, and
he never earned a penny from the original versions of his three famous
ballets. In Switzerland, he shivered through the period immediately
following the first World War. After that, he shed the devil may care
attitude characteristic of his Ballets russes days and was always
extremely punctilious in his business dealings. (If you want to see an
anal retentive relationship to money, read Bach's biography,
commercial-minded-ness, read Handel's, unscrupulous dealings with
publishers, read Beethoven's.) Later in life, when he actually had
some money, his attitude toward it resembled the attitude of the
self-made millionaire who never forgets his impoverished boyhood during
the Depression.
None of this remotely proves that "'When no money was involved, NOTHING
satisfied him." That's exactly the kind of slander that one musician
utters about another when there's no love lost between them. The most
effective slander is the kind that's based in reality. But if you
think money was Stravinsky's only or even his principal motivation, you
don't know anything about the man. He did expect to paid for his work.
-david gable
rkhalona
We all expect to be paid for our work. That goes without saying.
That Stravinsky was a talented composer and that he must have cared
about things
other than money, there is also no doubt (perhaps he could have been
richer being a lawyer).
But can you enlighten us about his motivation for revising Petrushka
and Firebird in the 40s?
(I do not believe that he never made a penny from these works IF you
include these revisions
-- he did record these revisions after all, why do you think that was?)
Regarding Bach and Handel, yes I'm pretty aware about their attitude
towards money, which only
underscores the fact that even talented composers can have many of the
failings most humans have.
RK
Lena
[Ray:]
> >getting out of bed in the morning, and having a healthy curiousity, has nothing
> whatsover to do with IS being miserable or not.
You forgot the "sod" :)
>
>
> On the contrary, greeting the fresh new day with enthusiasm
> [is part of] the strongest evidence that one is not miserable.
>
Only if one also salutes and doffs one's hat while greeting.
Personally, I think this obsessive propensity to get out of bed pretty
much damns Stravinsky as a composer. I prefer my composers to be lazy
miserable sods.
Lena
Matthew B. Tepper
to be typed in news:1124395625.0...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Well, the traditional story is that Stravinsky got his first "big break"
because Anatoly Liadov happened to be lazy.
Lena
> > Orchestre National de la R.T.F/Boulez and
> > Amalgamated Unions Gramophone Studio/Craft
> > (I've never heard of the last orchestra, maybe it's a bad
> > translation)
Yes, the official term "Ministry of Agriculture Amalgamated Pipe and
Hose Workers' Orchestra" got slightly mangled in translation. But the
performance is superb nevertheless. Even though Stravinsky disapproved
of the pieces of pipe and suspenders on the stage.
> Ooops, sorry, that was the label. It should read State Symphony
> Orchestra of the USSR/Craft
:)
Lena
Ian Pace
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1124385036....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Don't take Ian's blanket condemnation of Stravinsky at face value.
This is not a blanket condemnation of Stravinsky, rather a suggestion we
might think about these things when investigating certain forms of
anti-subjective tendencies in some forms of early modernism.
> Better investigate for yourself before you silence Stravinsky by
> stamping the word fascist on his forehead. People are imperfect and
> multi-faceted, and their views change over time.
I see little reason to doubt that Stravinsky's world view was profoundly
authoritarian and anti-democratic in many ways. Indeed that wasn't all there
was to him and his view, but it is a current that runs through much of his
life and thought.
> Many people in Europe were taken in at first by Mussolini's fascist
> party including all of the vanguard Italian painters because Europeans
> had experienced chaos and the horrors of the bloodiest war in European
> history first hand: the fascists seemed to offer a shiny new modern
> style of law and order along with a perenially seductive "national
> pride."
This is the whole basis upon which fascist Europe and mass genocide were
made possible. I think that to be taken in by this does suggest lack of
judgement, don't you?
> Italian fascism seemed to be an emanation of the new machine
> age that was going to liberate man from poverty, hunger, and hard
> labor. A "White Russian," Stravinsky himself had a lifelong fear of
> anarchy in part because of terrorist bombings by Russian anarchists
> before the Russian revolution.
That almost sounds like an advocacy of fascism as the alternative to
'anarchy' - quite a common view amongst fascist supporters.
> The only evidence we have of Stravinsky's "fascism" is an
> enthusiastic remark he made about Mussolini in the early 30's.
The exact quote was this:
'I don't believe that anyone venerates Mussolini more than I. To me, he is
the *one man who counts* nowadays in the whole world. I have travelled a
great deal: I know many exalted personages, and my rtist's mind does not
shrink from political and social issues. Well, after having seen so many
events and so many more or less representative men, I have an overpowering
urge to render homage to your Duce. He is the saviour of Italy and - let us
hope - Europe.'
and afterwards, in conversation with the critic Alberto Gasco:
'the mental image I had formed of this formidable man was exactly right. The
conversation I had with him has made an indelible impression on me. This
pilgrimage to Rome will remain one of the happiest events of my life.'
(A. Gasco, 'Da Cimarosa a Stravinsky', Rome: De Santis, 1939, p. 452, cited
in Harvey Sachs - 'Music in Fascist Italy', New York: Norton, 1987, p 168)
And after a meeting with Mussolini:
'Unless my ears deceive me, the voice of Rome is the voice of Il Duce. I
told him that I felt like a fascist myself. Today, fascists are everywhere
in Europe... In spite of being extremely busy, Mussolini did me the great
honour of conversing with me for three-quarters of an hour. WE talked about
music, art and politics.'
(Il Piccolo, 27th May 1935, cited in Sachs, op cit, p, 168)
In a letter to Yakov Lvovich Lvov, December 5, 1935:
'It is a great pity that I cannot accept the kind invitation of the Ministry
of Propaganda for the performance of 'Oedipus' set for March 15', then he
expresses sympathy for 'the difficult position that Italy, glorious and
unique, now rejuvenated and thirsting for life, has been put in by worldwide
obscurantism..'
Note also the following which occurred in the year 1926:
'..however vague Stravinsky's information on Mussolini at that precise
moment, he was soon to learn what the Fascists were made of when he heard
from Charles-Albert Cingria how his brother, Alexandre, had been
deliberately jostled in a Milan art gallery, arrested as a pick-pocket, then
held in jail on the grounds that the blade of his pocket knife exceeded the
permitted length. The arrest was an error. alexandre had been mistaken for
Charles-Albert, who had made no secret of his antifascist views, and who was
himself arrested in Rome later that same year and imprisoned for two months
without trail. But it would have been hard for the Stravinsky of 1935, the
time of the autobiography, to report such matters objectively, since by then
he had been received by Mussolini and had spoken admiringly about him to the
Roman press.'
(Stephen Walsh - 'Igor Stravinsky: A Creative Spring, Russia and France
1882-1934 (Pimlico: London, 2000), p 430)
'But at the start of 1933 the outlook was darkening rapidly. The
catastrophic situation in Germany came into menacing focus in Berlin at the
end of January, with Hindenburg's appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor
of the Reich. By a supreme irony, Stravinsky was in Wiesbaden on that day,
discussing a new stage work with Andre Gide and lunching with Rosbaud, who
was booking him to conduct 'Oedipus Rex' and the Symphony of Psalms in
Frankfurt that spring. Within weeks the invitation had been withdrawn, as
the Nazis bore down on modern art and foreign performers. Rosbaud's own
position in Frankfurt became increasingly precarious, and was, as we saw,
certainly not prrof against the indiscreet booking of suspect foreign
artists. Meanwhile, Stravinsky had gone from Wiesbaden to Munich, where he
gave a recital with Dushkin in the Odeon on a February. A day or two later,
he and Vera were dining with a friend who had helped set up the Munich
concert, the Photographer Eric Schaal, when three Nazi officials came into
the restaurant and began to direct loud anti-Semitic remarks at them. They
left hurriedly, but the men followed them into the street and launched a
vicious attack on Schaal, punching and kicking him, until Igor and Vera
somehow managed to bundle him into a taxi and get him away. From
Stravinsky's point of view, not the least disturbing aspect of the incident
was that the thugs seemed to identify him, too, as a Jew (while Schaal, by
Stravinsky's own account, was attacked because he protested). Luckily
Dushkin, who was Jewish both in appearance and in fact, was not with them
that evening and only heard all about it later from chaal. The violinist had
hastened back to Paris to be with his adoptive father, Blair Fairchild, who
was mortally ill with tuberculosis and died at his home in Fontainebleau
less than three months later.
Whether or not he was Jewish, the outlook in Nazi Germany for a musician of
such prominent modernist tendencies as Stravinsky's was bleak indeed. Willy
STrecker reported on the atmosphere two months after Hitler's accession. The
mood, he said, was excitable, and already a "Kultur Kampfbund" (Fighting
Front for Culture) had been formed "with the aim of promoting German art and
suppressing Jewish and Bolshevik art." There were lists of undesirables, and
Stravinsky's name was on the list of Jews. So Strecker asked him to send a
statement of his ancestry, to be kept on file against any future need for
"authentic, reliable proof." Stravinsky's reply is disagreeable evidence of
his willingness to acquiesce in the distinctions which made it necessary; it
provided a detailed genealogy, bristling with particles of nobility (*de*
Stravinsky, *de* Kholodovsky, *de* Nosenko), and calling down anathema on
any political and intellectual system of which the Nazis might disapprove:
"all communism, all Marxisn, the execrable Soviet monster, but every kind of
liberalism, democratism, atheism, etc." "I take this opportunity," he
concluded, apparently withou irony, "to wish you and all yours a good and
Happy Easter."
(ibid., pp. 518-519)
'Stravinsky knew something about the dark side of fascism, even though
Mussolini had not yet embarked on the international adventures (startng with
Ethiopia in 1935) which revealed him starkly as a ruthless mass murderer and
dangerous political maneuverer. Over the Toscanini incident in 1926 the
ocmposer may reasonably have felt that the issue of the "Giovinezza" was at
bottom no more than a battle of political will, rather than the moral
crusade it was later painted. But he also knew about Charles-Albert
Cingria's summary arrest and incarceration in the Regina Coeli Prison in
Rome in October of that same year on a trumped-up charge of subversion, and
he knew how badly Cingria, one of his closest friends, had been treated and
how ill served by the Italian legal system.
But Stravinsky came to his thirties politics no longer from the point of
view of social or moral equity, and certainly not from any consideration of
the normal base poltiical factores such as economics or the balance of
power. His motives were partly atavistic, party aesthetic, partly - as we
have seen - pure self-preservation. In the days when leftism had meant
siding with the intelligentsia against the decaying tyranny of the Romanovs,
he, like most of his class, had longed for democracy and freedom. But now
that leftist meant the Bolsheviks, and democracy apparently equalled
unstable world markets and rigid protectionism, he watned none of them. In
their place he looked for order and stability, and if they could be found in
a country which still welcomed him and his music and which also happened to
be the historical focus of European art and culture, then that country could
be sure of his favor. So it was Fascist Italy, with its imagined cult of
efficiency and its apparent open-door treatment of art, including modern
art, that gave Stravinsky the comfortable feeling of ordered progress which
was, in a sense, his own spiritual world, bearing in mind that the return to
order in Maritain and Cocteau, and in his own work of the early twenties,
had been in social political terms precisely a reactionary movement,
exalting the work, but only as long as he knew his place, kept to the rules,
and avoided a disruptive individualism. Nazi Germany, by contrast, was not
at all a comfortable place for a Russian musician like Stravinsky to
contemplate. It was protectionist and turbulent; in principle it was hostile
to work such as his, even if in practice it sometimes admitted it; and,
perhaps worst of all, it had abandoned him as a working musician, as a
performer. Stravinsky scarcely turned against Germany in or immediately
after 1933. He seems to have been unconcerned at the Nazis' brutalization of
daily life, as he had experienced it in Munich (an incident he apparently
did not mention to Strecker), and he was hardly likely to take arms against
their anti-Semitism. But he could not be at ease with them so long as they
behaved equivocally towards him and his work.'
(ibid, pp.521-522)
(the last sentence tells us a lot about Stravinsky's priorities).
Note also the following, from the 1950s:
Robert Craft: Do you recall the circumstances in which you performed
Debussy's 'Nuages' and 'Fetes' in Rome?
Igor Stravinsky: That was on 23 February 1933. The host organization asked
me to play 'something French', which, of course, could only mean Debussy.
What I remember most clearly about the visit was that Mussolini sent ofr me
and that I had to go to him. I was taken to his office in the Palazzo
Venezia, a long hall with a single large desk flanked by ugly modern lamps.
A square-built, bald man stood in attendance. As I approached, Mussolini
looked up and said, 'Bonjour, Stravinsky, aswye-ez vous [*asseyez-vous*]' -
the words of his French were correct, but the accent was Italian. He was
wearing a dark business suit. We chatted briefly about music, and he said
that he played the violin. He was quiet and sober, but not very polite. His
last remark was: 'You will come and see me the next time you are in Rome,
*and I will receive you*.' Afterwards I remembered that he had cruel eyes.
In fact, I avoided Rome again for that very reason - until 1936. In that
year I was rehearsing at the Santa Cecilia when Count Ciano appeared and
invited me to vist his father-in-law. I remember talking to Ciano about an
exhibition of Italian masterpieces then in Paris, and expressing concern for
their safety during travels abroad. Ciano grunted at this and said, 'Oh, we
have kilometers of such things.' Mussolini was surrounded by absurd grandeur
this time. He was in uniform, and a path of military presonages came and
went the whole time. He was gayer and bouncier than on my first visit, and
his gestures were even more ridiculously theatrical. He had read, and
mumbled something about, my autobiography. He promised to come to my
concert, too, but mercifully did not.
(Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft - 'Memories and Commentaries (one-volume
edition) (London: Faber & Faber, 2002), pp. 184-185)
A few rather mocking comments about Mussolini here, but no mention of his
previous admiration, let alone an attempt to recant for it.
Craft also comments in a footnote to the first volume of the selected
correspondence (1982) that 'the full story of Stravinsky and fascist Italy
has yet to be written'. Some more research has of course been done into this
subject since that volume appeared.
> Later
> Stravinsky fled Europe when he saw first hand what was happening in
> Germany. He even experienced a terrifying moment in a German café
> when Nazi thugs who came in to vandalize the place mistook him for a
> Jew.
See above. Anyhow, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while allied, were not
identical in nature, not least in an aesthetic sense (which would have been
the thing that mattered to Stravinsky). By and large, the aesthetics of Nazi
Germany were hostile to the sort of modernism that Stravinsky espoused,
unlike Fascist Italy, with its cults of futurism and the like. Goebbels was
an exception in Nazi Germany - his own thinking was perhaps closer to that
of Mussolini - seeing as he did the possibilities of modernist techniques
for communicating a primal message (which after all is very fundamental to
Stravinsky as well). But Hitler and most of the other leading Nazis were
sentimental romantics in an aesthetic sense, unlike the cold, calculating
Goebbels (see Frederic Spott - 'Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics' for a
fascinating treatment of this subject).
> With its brutal programmatic depiction of goose-stepping
> soldiers, the Symphony in Three Movements, written in the United States
> in the mid-40's, was a kind of anti-fascist and anti-war manifesto,
> and anti-war not in the sense of a general philosophical pacifism but
> in the sense of "opposed to fascist-style war mongering."
What is the source of this last statement? Did Stravinsky comment at all on
his earlier support for Mussolini in this context? Or was he simply seeking
to say the right things for his American hosts to hear?
I would like to see a clear repudiation of Stravinsky's earlier feelings
towards Mussolini, if such a thing exists.
Ian
rkhalona
break"
because Anatoly Liadov happened to be lazy.
--
Matthew B. Tepper>>
Speaking of Stravinsky, a few months back Jim Sjveda on "The Record
Shelf" dedicated
a program to Eric Coates during which he told the following anecdote
(IIRC, it happened
in the late 20s):
Stravinsky came to Britain at Coates' invitation and stayed at the
conductor's house.
One morning while having breakfast with Stravinsky, Coates invited the
composer to a recording
session of Petrushka that Coates was leading (don't remember the
orchestra, but it may have been the LSO).
Stravinsky declined saying that he preferred to go for a walk. Coates'
recording took a few days
and every morning Stravinsky declined to go, again sayng that he
preferred to walk. Several
months later, when Stravinsky was long gone, Coates found out that
during his stay at his home,
Stravinsky had recorded the same work with another orchestra (Queen's
Hall Orchestra?).
Apparently he was never invited to Coates' home.
If anyone knows this story better, please ammend as necessary.
RK
rkhalona
Stravinsky as conductors as Stravinsky is superior to Klemperer as a
composer. >>
It would have been interesting to hear Stravinsky conduct Klemperer's
"Merry Waltz".
The staccato style may have worked. :-)
RK
rkhalona
I blame Eric Grunin for that mistake :-)
RK
Josep Vilanova
> I seem to recall that Stravinsky liked Bernstein's recording a lot and
> commented on it with "wow!"
Can anyone confirm what I heard once (I heard that more than twenty years
ago, and that my memory is a bit unreliable): Stravinsky attended a
performance of the Rite of Spring with Bernstein conducting. At the end,
Bernstein, doing a rather theatrical gesture, went to Stravinsky and kneeled
down in front of him. Then Stravinksy, obviously unimpressed, told him:
'Lenny, your tempi were wrong'
Josep
Josep Vilanova
>> Ideally a composer who is still around should shut up and go on composing
>> other stuff.
>
> This is absurd. You're allowed to go on talking about The Rite and
> Stravinsky isn't? You don't think he's going to react when he hears a
> recording of the Rite? You don't think he's entitled to express his
> reaction?
>
That makes me thing on a more general debate about the aesthetic ownership
of an author of his works once he has published them. In Barcelona (where I
used to live), years ago, a Russian theatre director did a play by Ariel
Dorfman called 'Death and the maiden'. He decided to do a change in the play
and ask the actor who was playing one of the characters to shot another
character (the play was about the interaction of a torturer and his victim
and, I believe, a film was made later on). That shooting was not described
in the play. Dorfman found out about that change (in the actions of the
characters, not on the words being said) and started a legal action to stop
that particular version of his play from being performed. The director
argued that the role of the author ends when he publishes his work. He put
Shakespeare at example. In Hamlet, after the death of Hamlet, a foreign army
enters, there is a speak and the play ends. In some version that army are
depicted as a fascist army, in some others are depicted as something
completely different. He argued that those differences reflected the
cultural differences of the places and times around the performance of that
particular play.
j
Josep Vilanova
Getting out of bed every day may be because of a strong sense personal
discipline and may not have much to do with a cheerful mood. Getting out of
bed 'with enthusiasm and unending curiosity' is another matter. Anhedonia, a
core symptom of depression, implies a lack of pleasure in activities that
used to be pleasurable. That sounds incompatible with having enthusiasm and
unending curiosity.
j
On 18/8/05 6:16 pm, in article
1124385390.4...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, "david...@aol.com"
david...@aol.com
Ian,
Do you really think the average early supporter of Italian fascism had
any inkling that Hitler's Final Solution was in the offing? As for a
clear repudiation by Stravinsky of his earlier feelings toward
Mussolini, of course it wasn't forthcoming. Stravinsky was only human.
He was hardly going to call a press conference in 1950 and say, "Mea
culpa. You don't know anything about this, but 20 years ago I made a
couple of admiring statements about Mussolini." He was going to go on
about his life. Moreover, there's no question that his experiences in
Germany were disillusioning, that he was no supporter of Mussolini when
he fled to the States. (Do you think he wanted Germany to occupy
France or Italy to defeat the Allies?)
As is usual with you, and as is typical of a certain kind of leftist,
you condemn the average human being guilty of ordinary cowardices for
failing to live up to your impossibly lofty moral standards . You
would love to believe that Stravinsky was a lifelong ardent fascist
when he was never really a fascist at all so that you could hold a
posthumous show trial, and you're doing everything in your power to tar
him with the brush of Nazism. If you really wanted to combat fascism,
you'd do better to try to understand the average person's fear of chaos
and crime and anarchy, try to understand why time and again people have
been so willing to trade in freedom for law and order. Calling them
"fascists" misses the point.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
WIth all due respect, Ramon, this statement differs considerably from
your first on the subject of Stravinsky's relationship to money.
There's no question that one of Stravinsky's motivations for revising
Firebird and Petrushka in the 40's was to get them under copyright. I
said he never made a penny off the ORIGINAL versions, and nobody has
ever had to pay a publisher a cent in royalties in order to play these
pieces. Of course Stravinsky was paid a modest sum for the original
commissions by the Ballets russes. He was also paid any time he was
hired to conduct Firebird or Le sacre.
-david gable
Vaneyes
Michael Schaffer wrote:
> Vaneyes wrote:
> > Michael Schaffer wrote:
> > >
> > > I thought the one coupled with Prokofiev 5 was the later recording from
> > > the 70s...? Or not?
> > > The one coupled with Apollon is actually the later one, isn't it?
> >
> > The DG Originals is '77. The DG Privilege or Classikon is '64...also
> > available in the DG 100 Masterpieces series.
> >
> > The '64 is the one to get. Forget about what Stravinsky said.
> >
> > Regards
>
> Privilege or Classikon don't seem to be available anymore, even used.
> Is this one here
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001GBZ/qid=1124340685/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_12/103-7123162-5945469?v=glance&s=classical
> the 64 or 77?
Excuse me, I should've enlarged the cover. Musikfest '64.
Regards
david...@aol.com
>ago, and that my memory is a bit unreliable): Stravinsky attended a
>performance of the Rite of Spring with Bernstein conducting. At the end,
>Bernstein, doing a rather theatrical gesture, went to Stravinsky and kneeled
>down in front of him. Then Stravinksy, obviously unimpressed, told him:
>'Lenny, your tempi were wrong'
Yes, this happened. I believe the "Wow!" was after a Symphony of
Psalms performance. When I get my books unpacked, I'll try to remember
to look up both of these stories.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
"Getting out of bed every day may be because of a strong sense personal
discipline and may not have much to do with a cheerful mood."
Or it may be both. I wasn't inventing a Romantic anecdote about
Stravinsky. I saw him discussing getting up in the morning on camera.
I believe he was being interviewed by Rolf Liebermann.
-david gable
rkhalona
<<
>That Stravinsky was a talented composer and that he must have cared about things other than money, there is also no doubt
WIth all due respect, Ramon, this statement differs considerably from
your first on the subject of Stravinsky's relationship to money. >>
In a literal sense, you are correct, but I think it's well documented
(by even those who were close
to him) that he was rather insecure about money. I don't really care
about the source of this insecurity,
btw, but I think it's sad that a man of his talent chooses to spend
valuable time towards the end of his
life revising popular works so that he can get more money, instead of
composing/creating new works.
RK
Ian Pace
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1124401218.1...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> Ian,
>
> Do you really think the average early supporter of Italian fascism had
> any inkling that Hitler's Final Solution was in the offing?
I never suggested that. Whilst obviously the memories of Nazism and fascism
are absolutely dominated by the Final Solution, that's not the only terrible
thing about them. Even had the Final Solution not occurred (and historians
are seriously divided as to whether this was intrinsic to fascism from the
beginning or whether it emerged as a genocidal response to circumstances),
we would still, I hope, come away with terrible memories of the real nature
of fascist Europe. Fascism did give expression to pronounced authoritarian
and anti-democratic tendencies that were most prevalent in the early 20th
century, not least amongst quite a number of intellectuals.
> As for a
> clear repudiation by Stravinsky of his earlier feelings toward
> Mussolini, of course it wasn't forthcoming. Stravinsky was only human.
> He was hardly going to call a press conference in 1950 and say, "Mea
> culpa. You don't know anything about this, but 20 years ago I made a
> couple of admiring statements about Mussolini." He was going to go on
> about his life. Moreover, there's no question that his experiences in
> Germany were disillusioning, that he was no supporter of Mussolini when
> he fled to the States.
Well, how clear-cut is that really? What did Stravinsky have to say
specifically about Mussolini during the war years?
> (Do you think he wanted Germany to occupy
> France or Italy to defeat the Allies?)
No, but was his condemnation of Italy on a par with his sentiments towards
Germany.
>
> As is usual with you, and as is typical of a certain kind of leftist,
> you condemn the average human being guilty of ordinary cowardices for
> failing to live up to your impossibly lofty moral standards .
I think you're the one who most often self-righteously pronounces lofty
moral standards. I do think that Stravinsky was deeply culpable for his
explicit support of Mussolini - I feel the same way about Ezra Pound (who
also never properly recanted), Wyndham Lewis (though he definitely did
recant on his appalling early article on Hitler - nonetheless, on the basis
of his work and ideas, pro-fascist tendencies on his part don't surprise
me), T.S. Eliot (for his anti-semitism and antipathy to democracy), D.H.
Lawrence (similar sentiments with respect to democracy, and other ideas that
are quite fascistic), Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius (both of whom
thought they could do well under the Nazis), Fillipo Marinetti, Wilhelm
Furtwangler, etc., etc., etc. Still, they are all artists whose work
continues to interest me (maybe not so much with Lawrence). But I'm not
looking to blanketly 'condemn' people - it seems you can only see things in
such black-and-white terms - just to suggest that we should consider these
aspects of the individuals' lives and ideas when thinking about their work.
I think there are few Stravinsky experts who would disagree here.
> You
> would love to believe that Stravinsky was a lifelong ardent fascist
> when he was never really a fascist at all
We're talking here about the man who said to Mussolini that 'I felt a
fascist myself'. Stravinsky was a confused and wrong-headed man, certainly,
and I don't believe he had genocidal tendencies particularly (other than to
the extent that all those complicit with certain types of regimes, including
Western capitalist ones, are), but he did have this streak within him. I
don't think that's unimportant.
> so that you could hold a
> posthumous show trial, and you're doing everything in your power to tar
> him with the brush of Nazism.
I don't have to do that, Stravinsky did it himself. The relationship between
early 20th century artists and fascism (and Stalinist communism, for that
matter) is a big subject and an important one, I feel.
> If you really wanted to combat fascism,
> you'd do better to try to understand the average person's fear of chaos
> and crime and anarchy, try to understand why time and again people have
> been so willing to trade in freedom for law and order.
Anyone who knows the first thing about the far right knows how they prey
upon and stoke fear and paranoia so as to garner support for repressive and
racist policies. One would have hoped that 'intellectuals' such as
Stravinsky might be a bit less gullible in this respect - or did their
support for fascism have deeper roots, rather than simply being the product
of stupidity?
But otherwise your sentiments above would go down very well in the
Republican Party, I think.
> Calling them "fascists" misses the point.
>
No, that was Stravinsky's own description of himself (at least likening
himself to one). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Ian
Josep Vilanova
On 18/8/05 11:03 pm, in article
1124402600.9...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, "david...@aol.com"
<david...@aol.com> wrote:
> I wasn't inventing a Romantic anecdote about
> Stravinsky.
And I never thought you were. Who knows what have been motivating him. A
Catalan writer (Josep Pla was his name) once said that envy was an
underrated facet in our personality, as it was envy what made us get up
every morning. I'm not sure I agree with him anyway. In any case, I find
quite difficult getting up every morning (maybe I should be more envious, I
don't know...)
j
Josep Vilanova
On 18/8/05 11:07 pm, in article TE7Ne.12959$Mf6....@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net,
"Ian Pace" <i...@ianpace.com> wrote:
> One would have hoped that 'intellectuals' such as
> Stravinsky might be a bit less gullible in this respect
Why? Stravinsky intellectual expertise seemed to be confined to music. As it
was the case of Furtwangler (he may thought otherwise, but his writings on
visual arts don't seem to be specially insightful), or many other artists
like Wagner. Don't you think it's lazy-thinking to consider that :
A Stravinsky composed (a complicated mental activity)
B intellectuals do complicated things with their minds
Therefore, Stravinsky was an intellectual (defined as a someone who, on top
of indulging on complicated mental activities should 'know best')?
j
Ian Pace
"Josep Vilanova" <josepv...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BF2ACEED.E518%josepv...@hotmail.com...
>
>
>
> On 18/8/05 11:07 pm, in article TE7Ne.12959$Mf6....@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net,
> "Ian Pace" <i...@ianpace.com> wrote:
>
>> One would have hoped that 'intellectuals' such as
>> Stravinsky might be a bit less gullible in this respect
>
>
> Why? Stravinsky intellectual expertise seemed to be confined to music. As
> it
> was the case of Furtwangler (he may thought otherwise, but his writings on
> visual arts don't seem to be specially insightful), or many other artists
> like Wagner.
In both those cases (in quite similar ways) I think the implications of such
things impact on their musical work as well.
> Don't you think it's lazy-thinking to consider that :
>
> A Stravinsky composed (a complicated mental activity)
> B intellectuals do complicated things with their minds
> Therefore, Stravinsky was an intellectual (defined as a someone who, on
> top
> of indulging on complicated mental activities should 'know best')?
>
If you want to contest the definition of Stravinsky as an 'intellectual',
then fair enough. My point essentially is that looking at other aspects of
artists and intellectuals' world-view (very often extremely questionable) is
pertinent to considering the expression of their world-view through their
art.
Ian
david...@aol.com
>I think it's well documented (by even those who were close to him) that he was rather insecure about money
Yes, I know. (DIdn't I just help you to document this?)
>I think it's sad that a man of his talent chooses to spend valuable time towards the end of his life revising popular works so that he can get more money, instead of composing/creating new works.
I wouldn't feel too bad about it. He didn't spend that much time on
the revisions, and he didn't do any more revising than most composers.
One of the reasons for the revisons was precisely that he was at a bit
of an impasse. Happens all the time. Nor was it near the end of his
life: he still had a quarter of a century to go. He wrote lots of
music after making those revisions including his longest work and only
full-length opera, The Rake's Progress; the ballet Agon; and his
longest liturgical work, Threni. (Stravinsky actually tinkered with Le
sacre throughout much of his life. BTW, having played the premiere,
Monteux always played a version of Le sacre that predates the first
published version.)
-david gable
Josep Vilanova
> In both those cases (in quite similar ways) I think the implications of such
> things impact on their musical work as well.
It belive it does have an impact. Furtwangler was a humanist with a
'struggle and redemption' view of human destiny and his view of how to
perform a Beethoven symphony was influenced by that. But let's have a
hypothetical case. Let's imagine that we have someone with an extremely
aggressive personality who has murdered different people. That person is
also a conductor and happens to conduct the 'Rite of Spring' before being
arrested. You may hear in his performance a sort of brutality that may
benefit the performance. His personal views may have been questionable, but
those questionable views may had improved his musical work. Then the
implications of such things may impact in a surprisingly positive way.
What I try to say is that we should take everything into consideration when
analyzing a particular work of art, but that we also have to be flexible
when linking things like 'authoritarian personality' with 'always bad'.
> If you want to contest the definition of Stravinsky as an 'intellectual',
> then fair enough. My point essentially is that looking at other aspects of
> artists and intellectuals' world-view (very often extremely questionable) is
> pertinent to considering the expression of their world-view through their
> art.
Yes, but what you cannot do is to consider the quality of their art and
consider than someone with skills to produce something like a work of art
would have sills to do something completely unrelated, like having a
completely intelligent, clear headed view of what would happen with fascism,
as if both skills were variations of the same mental activity. Both mental
activities may be related, but they are not the same. I may be skilled at
some mental activities and not be skilled at all at some others. Both
activities may be related, but the skill in one of them may not imply an
skill in any other of them. Let me put you an example. The NHS pays me a
large amount of money every month as a payment for my skills in some
particular areas related to health. The mental activities I use for that
particular job are mostly a capacity to empathize with some people's
suffering and a capacity to decide what to do in a particular situation. If
I am to analyze what to do with the Iraq war, I could use that empathy. I
could try to understand the suffering of Iraqi people, and my skills in my
profession would be pertinent. They would certainly colour my judgment. Does
it mean that those skills would make me 'skilled' in analyzing something
alien to my profession? I don't think so. My sense of empathy, arguably, may
blind me to the larger picture. They would colour my judgment, but they
wouldn't make it any better. I wouldn't certainly know better than anyone
else. I don't only disagree about Stravinsky being considered an
intellectual. I disagree about the concept of such a thing as an
intellectual. Anyway... We are going quite off topic now.
j
Ian Pace
>
>> In both those cases (in quite similar ways) I think the implications of
>> such
>> things impact on their musical work as well.
>
> It belive it does have an impact. Furtwangler was a humanist with a
> 'struggle and redemption' view of human destiny and his view of how to
> perform a Beethoven symphony was influenced by that.
Certainly that's true - however I think Hitler's view of human destiny may
have been similar (and maybe even he thought of himself as a humanist).
But let's have a
> hypothetical case. Let's imagine that we have someone with an extremely
> aggressive personality who has murdered different people. That person is
> also a conductor and happens to conduct the 'Rite of Spring' before being
> arrested. You may hear in his performance a sort of brutality that may
> benefit the performance. His personal views may have been questionable,
> but
> those questionable views may had improved his musical work. Then the
> implications of such things may impact in a surprisingly positive way.
That's certainly possible. I can imagine a diehard Nazi giving the most
electrifying and fearfully barbaric possible performance of Carmina Burana,
also. But I do think these things make me question the ethics of the music
(in Orff and Stravinsky and others). And I wonder by what criteria we are
defining 'a surprisingly positive way'.
> What I try to say is that we should take everything into consideration
> when
> analyzing a particular work of art, but that we also have to be flexible
> when linking things like 'authoritarian personality' with 'always bad'.
>
I do agree more than you might realise, and accept the place for 'cathartic
art' of a type, including that which is brutal. But I think one should also
engage dialectically with the wider implications of this.
>
>> If you want to contest the definition of Stravinsky as an 'intellectual',
>> then fair enough. My point essentially is that looking at other aspects
>> of
>> artists and intellectuals' world-view (very often extremely questionable)
>> is
>> pertinent to considering the expression of their world-view through their
>> art.
>
>
> Yes, but what you cannot do is to consider the quality of their art and
> consider than someone with skills to produce something like a work of art
> would have sills to do something completely unrelated, like having a
> completely intelligent, clear headed view of what would happen with
> fascism,
> as if both skills were variations of the same mental activity.
I do still believe in the importance of the human qualities of a work of
art, and think there's a connection between these and the artist's wider
humanity. Disengaged aestheticism is of no interest to me.
> Both mental
> activities may be related, but they are not the same. I may be skilled at
> some mental activities and not be skilled at all at some others. Both
> activities may be related, but the skill in one of them may not imply an
> skill in any other of them. Let me put you an example. The NHS pays me a
> large amount of money every month as a payment for my skills in some
> particular areas related to health. The mental activities I use for that
> particular job are mostly a capacity to empathize with some people's
> suffering and a capacity to decide what to do in a particular situation.
> If
> I am to analyze what to do with the Iraq war, I could use that empathy. I
> could try to understand the suffering of Iraqi people, and my skills in my
> profession would be pertinent. They would certainly colour my judgment.
> Does
> it mean that those skills would make me 'skilled' in analyzing something
> alien to my profession? I don't think so. My sense of empathy, arguably,
> may
> blind me to the larger picture. They would colour my judgment, but they
> wouldn't make it any better. I wouldn't certainly know better than anyone
> else. I don't only disagree about Stravinsky being considered an
> intellectual. I disagree about the concept of such a thing as an
> intellectual. Anyway... We are going quite off topic now.
I see the point you're making, but think that composition or any other form
or artistic creation are about more than just 'skill' (though that of course
is important). I do think, however, that the sense of empathy that is vital
for your job is a good perspective to bring upon the Iraq war, and one sadly
absent from many of those who have embarked upon it or supported it. It
WOULD make your attitude to that war better, I truly believe that.
Ian
Bob Harper
(snip)
> We're talking here about the man who said to Mussolini that 'I felt a
> fascist myself'. Stravinsky was a confused and wrong-headed man, certainly,
> and I don't believe he had genocidal tendencies particularly (other than to
> the extent that all those complicit with certain types of regimes, including
> Western capitalist ones, are), but he did have this streak within him. I
> don't think that's unimportant.
>
>
> Ian
>
>
I'll let David answer the rest of Ian's post, but this particular
paragraph can't be allowed to pass without comment. In a word: b------t.
The notion that anyone who is 'complicit' with 'Western capitalism' is,
ipso facto, guilty of 'genocidal tendencies' is a damned lie. No doubt
your precious Marx has led you to this nonsense, but nonsense it is, and
will remain.
Bob Harper
Ian Pace
"Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:54-dnU48DsM...@comcast.com...
international finance system (in the form of institutions like the World
Bank and the IMF) is responsible for millions of child deaths every year in
the third world.
Ian
Andrew Clarke
> Ian
"Whilst obviously the memories of socialism and communism are
absolutely dominated by the purges and the famines, that's not the only
terrible thing about them. Even had the Red Terror not occurred (and
historians
are seriously divided as to whether this was intrinsic to communism
from the
beginning or whether it emerged as a genocidal response to
circumstances),
we would still, I hope, come away with terrible memories of the real
nature
of Communist Europe and East Asia. Communism did give expression to
pronounced authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies that were most
prevalent in the early 20th century, not least amongst quite a number
of intellectuals."
Mussolini's thugs were comparatively benign: people like Gramsci were
sent into comfortable exile on Mediterranean islands and anti-Semitism
was really imposed by Hitler after Italy had become virtually a German
satellite.
Even Hitler's efforts pale into insignificance compared to the
atrocities committed by Stalin and Mao and their epigones in Prague,
Berlin, Pyongyang etc. Che Guevara, star of trendy T-shirts around the
sophomore world, shot so many Cubans that even Fidel found it hard to
stomach.
I suspect it is no coincidence that, with the downfall of the Soviet
bloc and the autodestruction of Maoism, the full extent of the horrors
perpetrated in the name of the Socialist paradise are becoming more and
more widely known, the yelling and screaming about the evils of fascism
are getting louder and louder.
ajc
canberra
SG
atrocities committed by Stalin and Mao and their epigones in Prague,
Berlin, Pyongyang etc."
Mr. Clarke, while I'm able to appreciate some of the sentiment your
post came from (post with the gist of which I largely and passionately
agree), I do have to take issue with the above.
Hitler's " 'efforts' pale into insignificance" compared to nobody's.
Mussolini's perhaps, but I wouldn't absolve that bastard of his many
crimes, either, obviously. Others have destroyed as much, almost as
much or more, but I wouldn't relativize the absolute evil embodied by
Nazism anymore than I would relativize the absolute evil reprezented by
Communism in all its manifestations. And of course at the present time
and with all the historical knowledge we have, a communist
holocaust-apologizer condemning fascism is about as credible as a
holocaust-deniar condemning communism.
Hitler killed plethoras of Jews in unprecedented and incalculably
brutal ways, he also killed Poles, Russians, Gypsies and many others
and adding up his war crimes to his crimes against humanity makes it
impossible for anybody to talk about "paling into insignificance".
I salute, though, your common-sense correction in what regards the
ridiculous fallacy of condemning fascism (real fascism as well as
anything at the right of Michael Moore), while pushing under the carpet
the evils of communism.
regards,
SG
Bob Harper
to which I have title, and it's for sale cheap.
Bob Harper
Ian Pace
"Andrew Clarke" <a...@cts.canberra.edu.au> wrote in message
news:1124414120.5...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Many of the type of left that I feel sympathy with would fervently deny that
what went on in Eastern Europe, let alone East Asia, could be called
'socialist' in any meaningful sense. Socialism is about workers' control of
the means of production, distribution and exchange, something that can in no
sense be said to have occurred other than perhaps in the first year to
eighteen months of the Russian Revolution.
>
> Mussolini's thugs were comparatively benign: people like Gramsci were
> sent into comfortable exile on Mediterranean islands and anti-Semitism
> was really imposed by Hitler after Italy had become virtually a German
> satellite.
Let's see if some Ethiopians would agree with you there. Oh, but I forgot,
they don't count, because they aren't European?
But actually, Mussolini's thugs were arguably less brutal and genocidal than
the the various Western imperial powers during their heyday (including the
Germans in SW Africa, now Nambia). The Belgians killed possibly more
Congolese than the Nazis killed Jews. But once again, genocide amongst
people of dark skins is rarely seen as of comparable importance.
>
> Even Hitler's efforts pale into insignificance compared to the
> atrocities committed by Stalin and Mao and their epigones in Prague,
> Berlin, Pyongyang etc.
Tell me how the communists in Prague or Berlin committed comparable
atrocities.
> Che Guevara, star of trendy T-shirts around the
> sophomore world, shot so many Cubans that even Fidel found it hard to
> stomach.
Every guerilla leader in Latin America got their hands dirty. How about the
Contras in Nicaragua, beloved of Reagan and many other US politicians?
>
> I suspect it is no coincidence that, with the downfall of the Soviet
> bloc and the autodestruction of Maoism, the full extent of the horrors
> perpetrated in the name of the Socialist paradise are becoming more and
> more widely known, the yelling and screaming about the evils of fascism
> are getting louder and louder.
>
The horrors of all systems, fascist, communist, and capitalist, all need to
be exposed in equal measure. The only ones we hear about regularly are those
which serve the ideological ends of those in power at the moment.
Ian
Bob Harper
Amen. We see Mr. Pace already in the vanguard.
Bob Harper
Ian Pace
> Ian Pace wrote:
>> "Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:54-dnU48DsM...@comcast.com...
>>
>>>Ian Pace wrote:
>>>(snip)
>>>
>>>>We're talking here about the man who said to Mussolini that 'I felt a
>>>>fascist myself'. Stravinsky was a confused and wrong-headed man,
>>>>certainly, and I don't believe he had genocidal tendencies particularly
>>>>(other than to the extent that all those complicit with certain types of
>>>>regimes, including Western capitalist ones, are), but he did have this
>>>>streak within him. I don't think that's unimportant.
>>>>
>>>paragraph can't be allowed to pass without comment. In a word: b------t.
>>>The notion that anyone who is 'complicit' with 'Western capitalism' is,
>>>ipso facto, guilty of 'genocidal tendencies' is a damned lie. No doubt
>>>your precious Marx has led you to this nonsense, but nonsense it is, and
>>>will remain.
>>
>> It's not a lie at all, and one doesn't need Marx to see that. The
>> international finance system (in the form of institutions like the World
>> Bank and the IMF) is responsible for millions of child deaths every year
>> in the third world.
>>
> to which I have title, and it's for sale cheap.
>
at 12 million children under the age of five each year as a result of the
structural adjustment policies imposed by globalisation.
Ian
Ed in Seattle
<> I wonder if Stravinsky ever commented on Bernstein's recording with the
> New York Philharmonic: I would have thought that would have been far
> closer to the score than the Karajan he obviously thought missed the
> boat. I think the Bernstein is a very good performance but there are
> probably hundreds of others I do not know.
>
I remember seeing an article (source long forgotten) in which IS was quoted
as saying "Wow!" after hearing the Bernstein recording. It was left unclear
whether the comment was pure approval or sarcasm. No further IS comment was
reported in that article.
Ed Presson
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in
news:1124397386....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
><<Well, the traditional story is that Stravinsky got his first "big
> break" because Anatoly Liadov happened to be lazy.
>
> Speaking of Stravinsky, a few months back Jim Sjveda on "The Record
> Shelf" dedicated a program to Eric Coates during which he told the
> following anecdote (IIRC, it happened in the late 20s):
>
> Stravinsky came to Britain at Coates' invitation and stayed at the
> conductor's house. One morning while having breakfast with Stravinsky,
> Coates invited the composer to a recording session of Petrushka that
> Coates was leading (don't remember the orchestra, but it may have been
> the LSO). Stravinsky declined saying that he preferred to go for a
> walk. Coates' recording took a few days and every morning Stravinsky
> declined to go, again sayng that he preferred to walk. Several months
> later, when Stravinsky was long gone, Coates found out that during his
> stay at his home, Stravinsky had recorded the same work with another
> orchestra (Queen's Hall Orchestra?). Apparently he was never invited to
> Coates' home.
>
> If anyone knows this story better, please ammend as necessary.
Those must have been some walks, because I believe Stravinsky's first
recording of the work (and the only one made during Albert Coates'
lifetime) was done in Paris.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Hey spammers, look what happened to Vardan Kushnir. You're next!
Andrew Clarke
SG wrote:
> "Even Hitler's efforts pale into insignificance compared to the
> atrocities committed by Stalin and Mao and their epigones in Prague,
> Berlin, Pyongyang etc."
>
> Mr. Clarke, while I'm able to appreciate some of the sentiment your
> post came from (post with the gist of which I largely and passionately
> agree), I do have to take issue with the above.
>
> Hitler's " 'efforts' pale into insignificance" compared to nobody's.
I think we are at cross-purposes. Considered absolutely, Hitler, Stalin
and Mao were all evil men, and I'm not trying to absolve Hitler one
bit.
What I am getting at that in terms of the extent and number of the
iniquities perpetrated, Hitler comes a fairly poor third. I'm not
trying to deny the 6 million Jewish deaths, but you have to compare
that to the estimated 30 million dead in Mao's Great Leap Forward.
Hitler's concentration camps died with him, but the Gulag went on until
the end of the Soviet Union. And the Vietnamese "re-education camps"
are still going strong I believe.
Furthermore: Hitler's vague notions of "German Ideology" also died with
him. On the other hand, a debased form of Frankfurt Marxism is alive
and well: it lives on not only in Mr Pace's bizarre analysis of
Stravinsky but in numerous academic disciplines (the existence of the
word "Studies" in the name of the school or department is often a
give-away).
What is even more ironic is that the "impersonal" elements that Mr Pace
uses to link Stravinsky to Fascism could equally have been used to link
him to the equally "impersonal" Russian Constructivists, who flourished
in the early years of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately most of them
discovered they had backed the wrong horse. Ironically Stalin's notions
of "Socialist Realism" differed very little from Hitler's "German
Culture" when it came to outcomes -- grandiose neo-classical
architecture, collossal statuary and endless paintings of a smiling,
fecund peasantry and muscle-bound factory-workers.
ajc
c
Vaneyes
david...@aol.com wrote:
> According to Alex, Karajan certainly did see Stravinsky's review/essay
> and acted on it. That's certainly possible, but you'll have to show me
> more evidence than the fact that a later recording differs from the
> recording reviewed. Did Karajan tell you he saw the review? Did you
> read somewhere that Karajan saw the review? On what basis do you make
> your claim? I'd be extremely fascinated to hear more if you're
> correct. Meanwhile, I remain skeptical.
I do, too, since they both ('64 & '77 recs) IIRC have not too different
TTs. TTs aren't everything, but sluggishness was a main focus of the
'64 review.
Speaking of, I don't think of the review as mean-spirited, as some
suggest. Nor do I believe it as gospel, as some do...maybe to use in
their HvK-bashing episodes.
I see Igor backing off a bit at the review's conclusion, showing some
respect for the conductor's choices. Igor had a sense of humor,
especially when partaking of Johnnie Walker.
I don't have these HvK recs anymore, but when compared I thought the
second sounded more "hoochie coochie" than the first. Lucky, Igor
wasn't around to critique? heh heh
Regards
SG
"I think we are at cross-purposes. Considered absolutely, Hitler,
Stalin
and Mao were all evil men, and I'm not trying to absolve Hitler one
bit."
Good. I hoped you'd say that.
regards,
SG
Raymond Hall
news:dCaNe.11761$wh6....@newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
> The horrors of all systems, fascist, communist, and capitalist, all need
> to be exposed in equal measure. The only ones we hear about regularly are
> those which serve the ideological ends of those in power at the moment.
In a nutshell. All other comment is superfluous to the above statement. Pity
that so many here are blinkered, together with their appropriate coloured
and tinted glasses, isn't it?
Ray H
Taree
Raymond Hall
news:1124418337.9...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> david...@aol.com wrote:
>> According to Alex, Karajan certainly did see Stravinsky's review/essay
>> and acted on it. That's certainly possible, but you'll have to show me
>> more evidence than the fact that a later recording differs from the
>> recording reviewed. Did Karajan tell you he saw the review? Did you
>> read somewhere that Karajan saw the review? On what basis do you make
>> your claim? I'd be extremely fascinated to hear more if you're
>> correct. Meanwhile, I remain skeptical.
>
> I do, too, since they both ('64 & '77 recs) IIRC have not too different
> TTs. TTs aren't everything, but sluggishness was a main focus of the
> '64 review.
It is common knowledge that HvK knew of Stravinsky's critique of his first
Le Sacre. How anyone can dispute it is beyond me. Some have remarkable
memories that serve their purposes, whilst managing to fail them at
'inconvenient' times. Is someone *really* saying, and it almost amounts to
farce, that HvK *didn't* know of Stravinsky's remarks about his first
recording of Le Sacre? I have read in several tomes, that it generally irked
HvK greatly, but not that important that HvK lost any sleep.
To hear more, simply read some bog standard biographies of Karajan, and
Stravinsky, and other general books on music pertaining to recordings.
And for the record, like many here, I still enjoy a great deal of
Stravinsky's output, but in total, he never really amounted to much. Much of
his music wears off fairly quickly imo.
Ray H
Taree
david...@aol.com
It may be common knowledge, but It's news to me. Why do you make the
absurd assumption that I'm only pretending not to know? I'm not
particularly a fan of Karajan's, and I certainly have never read a
biography of him. If this really is common knowledge among fans of the
conductor or you've seen it mentioned in biographies of Karajan, I'd
would love a citation if you have one. I'd be very curious to know
more specifically how Karajan reacted.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
Thanks, Wayne.
-david gable
Raymond Hall
news:1124431988....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Give me time, and I'll dig out some references for you. I know they exist.
Besides, as you may well have imagine, (but obviously are doubtful), it is
hard to visualise a situation where HvK could have been so isolated as to
not know of critical appraisal of his work. Especially coming from a
composer, and in regard to an iconic work such as Le Sacre.
Ray H
Taree
Andrew T. Kay
[Ray Hall]
Your wish...
_Herbert von Karajan: A Life In Music_, Osborne, 1999, p. 505-6:
"The 1964 recording of Le sacre became something of a cause célèbre.
Stravinsky himself used the LP's release that autumn as a cue to write
the first of two comparative reviews (the second was written in 1970)
of recordings of Le sacre. This was inspired mischief-making by
Stravinsky, a burst of critical grapeshot that managed to pepper a
number of choice targets, including critics ('the useless generalities
of most record reviewing') and conductors (Boulez, Zubin Mehta, and an
obscure Russian also suffered ritual abduction).
"Some people got very hot under the collar about Stravinsky's
conductor-baiting, especially since his own conducting left a certain
amount to be desired. Ingmar Bergman has a particularly blistering
paragraph on the subject in his autobiography The Magic Lantern, in
which he excoriates, not so much Stravinsky, as the mediocrities who
were witless enough to take him seriously. This is an exaggerated
response. Karajan, no mediocrity, took much of what Stravinsky had to
say very seriously indeed.
"Stravinsky famously dubbed the 1964 Berlin Le sacre 'a pet savage
rather than a real one,' blaming the tradition from which the
performance came (German and unduly sostenuto) more than the
performance itself for its obvious shortcomings. Not everyone agreed
with this. While admitting that Stravinsky's own 'rhythmic
propulsiveness, melodic cynicism, and shyness about rubato took one
directly to the heart of the music,' Glenn Gould was concerned that
other interpretative options might be shut out by the hegemony of
Stravinsky's Stravinsky. To Gould, kite-flying as usual, Karajan's
account of Le sacre was 'the most imaginative and, in a purely
compartmentalized sense, "inspired" realisation' there had yet been on
record.
"Stravinsky's own judgment, however, was one that Karajan greatly
valued. It was Karajan, after all, who had said to Richard Strauss,
'Don't tell me what's right about my conducting of Elektra, tell me
what's wrong with it.' The jokes in Stravinsky's review and the largely
otiose remarks about (correctable) details of orchestral balance were
neither here nor there, but his remarks about the orchestra's *culture*
[emphasis Osborne's] were telling and useful. They helped Karajan set
fresh targets.
"After 1964, he let Le sacre rest for a while. Then, in the early
1970s, he returned to it with a renewed intensity and an even better
orchestra: better horns, better support in the subsidiary wind section,
and an even more finely schooled string section. There were also many
more live performances.
"By the time the work went back into the recording studio in November
1975, it was a performance of astonishing intensity. What is on the
finished record is an uninterrupted final take of a reading that no
longer cloys the appetite it feeds."
Todd K
Raymond Hall
news:1124433572.4...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
david...@aol.com wrote:
[Ray Hall]
> >It is common knowledge that HvK knew of Stravinsky's critique of his
> >first Le Sacre.
>
> It may be common knowledge, but It's news to me. Why do you make the
> absurd assumption that I'm only pretending not to know? I'm not
> particularly a fan of Karajan's, and I certainly have never read a
> biography of him. If this really is common knowledge among fans of the
> conductor or you've seen it mentioned in biographies of Karajan, I'd
> would love a citation if you have one. I'd be very curious to know
> more specifically how Karajan reacted.
!Your wish...
!_Herbert von Karajan: A Life In Music_, Osborne, 1999, p. 505-6:
!"The 1964 recording of Le sacre became something of a cause célèbre.
!Stravinsky himself used the LP's release that autumn as a cue to write
!the first of two comparative reviews (the second was written in 1970)
!of recordings of Le sacre. This was inspired mischief-making by
!Stravinsky, a burst of critical grapeshot that managed to pepper a
! <snipperoo ....
Thanks Andrew for that fine example of common knowledge <tic>
Ray H
Taree
Matthew B. Tepper
behind a poster so that he can tell a pompous person "You don't know my work
at all!" ;--)
Eric Grunin
exaggerate its importance, as do most of your respondents.
First I must establish why any of this matters even a little bit, that
is, why I'm responding at all:
The distinctive thing about Fascism -- as opposed to any other
significant political tendency of which I am aware -- is its open and
explicit advocacy and practice of political violence, combined with
putting that enthusiasm into practice on a monumental scale. This is
the source of its infamy.
Without this overt, explicit, and large-scale advocacy and practice of
violence, the Fascist regimes of WWII (let's not forget Japan) would
hardly stand out from the competition for Worst Regimes of All Time,
which is after all a crowded field.
That said:
Stravinsky was a White Russian (anti-Bolshevik counterrevolutionary)
of wonderful wit but little political acumen. Nothing in this
discussion suggests otherwise, certainly not weak assertions such as
"he seems to have..." and "he was hardly likely to..." and so forth. I
see no reason to think he believed in political violence or imperial
conquest, and without those convictions statements like 'I am a
fascist' are worthless, a declaration of love in the back seat of the
Chevy (or whatever car your UK teens drive these days). To look for a
relationship between his musical tastes and his political affinities
is to analyze a Rorschach blot: what you will see depends entirely on
what you wish to find.
I accepted long ago that even the greatest artists are humans and not
gods. They drink too much, cheat on their spouses, and are easily
seduced by demagogues -- some of them even vote Republican. In nearly
all cases we lose nothing by ignoring or -- to be Christian about it
-- forgiving such transgressions.
En fin:
Stravinsky's political ideas might be worthless, but his musical ideas
are certainly priceless. I suggest we apportion our attentions
accordingly.
Regards,
Eric Grunin
www.grunin.com/eroica
SG
Mr. Grunin:
<<The distinctive thing about Fascism -- as opposed to any other
significant political tendency of which I am aware -- is its open and
explicit advocacy and practice of political violence, combined with
putting that enthusiasm into practice on a monumental scale. This is
the source of its infamy.
Without this overt, explicit, and large-scale advocacy and practice of
violence, the Fascist regimes of WWII (let's not forget Japan) would
hardly stand out from the competition for Worst Regimes of All Time,
which is after all a crowded field.>>
When you mention "as opposed to any other significant political
tendency of which I am aware", Mr. Grunin, do you mean perchance to
suggest that Stalin's regime was less OR MORE adept of "practice of
political violence" than, say, Mussolini's regime (for which I have,
let me add in earnestness, no love lost)? Thanks.
regards,
SG
Josep Vilanova
On 19/8/05 9:03 am, in article
1124438592.3...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com, "SG"
<SGG...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <<The distinctive thing about Fascism -- as opposed to any other
> significant political tendency of which I am aware -- is its open and
> explicit advocacy and practice of political violence, combined with
> putting that enthusiasm into practice on a monumental scale. This is
> the source of its infamy.
I don't think it's going to be terribly useful to compare the horrors of
Nazi Germany with the horrors of Stalin's Soviet Union or of Mao's China.
Horrible things happened in all those regimes. I try to keep in my mind that
all those horrible acts were made by individuals, not by regimes as a such.
The regimes provided with the encouragement of the use of violence and in
the stirring of hatred in the psyche of the individuals who committed the
atrocities. The worse regime would be the one who would stir more hatred
(was a pre-existing hatred?) and who gave the individuals more opportunities
to express that hatred in a violent, murderous way. Nazism was a perfect
mechanism to stir hatred and a provided with good conditions to express that
hatred. So was Stalinism and Maoism, and so are some versions of Islam. In
a nutshell: evilness is on the people. Regimes give some extra strength to
that evilness and allows that evilness to express itself. Any regime who
stirs up a pre-existing hatred and allows to express itself will have evil
consequences. Comparing different authoritarian regimes for degrees of
evilness is an idle exercise, a bit like comparing werewolves with vampires:
all are to be avoided.
j
Ian Pace
"Wayne Reimer" <wr...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d6efe7e...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net...
> In article <1124381460.4...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> david...@aol.com says...
>>
>> >Stravinsky's opinion should not be given more weight than that of other
>> >people
>>
>> It shouldn't? Not when it comes to your choosing a performance,
>> perhaps. But he did know a thing or two about his own piece. In any
>> case, should Stravinsky or any other critic refrain from pointing out
>> the kinds of specific details that Stravinsky points out? The trouble
>> with most reviewers is that they don't have the knowledge,
>> intelligence, experience, and training necessary to make such kinds of
>> detailed criticisms.
>>
>> In any case, the whole thrust of the review is extremely interesting,
>> which is its ultimate justification. By which I mean Stravinsky's
>> recognition of and discussion of the specific differences in style
>> between Le sacre and a particular late German Romantic sostenuto style.
>>
>> >Ideally a composer who is still around should shut up and go on
>> >composing other stuff.
>>
>> This is absurd. You're allowed to go on talking about The Rite and
>> Stravinsky isn't? You don't think he's going to react when he hears a
>> recording of the Rite? You don't think he's entitled to express his
>> reaction?
>>
>> >(Not that Stravinsky conducts that bad, but one gets a bit tired of this
>> >never ending staccato style.
>>
>> But Stravinsky's style is a "never ending staccato style." The
>> staccato attack (and several different kinds of staccato attack) is as
>> intrinsic to Stravinsky's style as sostenuto strings are intrinsic to
>> Brahms's.
>
>
> Just to clarify one thing - staccato refers to release, not attack.
>
notes whilst playing with the pedal down - in this case it applies to the
attack not the release (as the release is not a factor). And from the 19th
century onwards, staccatos marked with a wedge rather than a dot are
generally taken to imply a sharper attack as well.
Ian
Ian Pace
"Eric Grunin" <a@b.c> wrote in message
news:43rag1tlvfbp84ghg...@4ax.com...
> This is all slightly interesting; nevertheless I believe you
> exaggerate its importance, as do most of your respondents.
It's certainly not the be-all and end-all about Stravinsky, nor do I wish to
condemn his work. This thread emerged as a response to David's wish to
dismiss Stravinsky's pro-fascist tendencies, which do, I believe, go rather
deeper than often previously thought.
>
> First I must establish why any of this matters even a little bit, that
> is, why I'm responding at all:
>
> The distinctive thing about Fascism -- as opposed to any other
> significant political tendency of which I am aware -- is its open and
> explicit advocacy and practice of political violence, combined with
> putting that enthusiasm into practice on a monumental scale. This is
> the source of its infamy.
>
> Without this overt, explicit, and large-scale advocacy and practice of
> violence, the Fascist regimes of WWII (let's not forget Japan) would
> hardly stand out from the competition for Worst Regimes of All Time,
> which is after all a crowded field.
>
> That said:
>
> Stravinsky was a White Russian (anti-Bolshevik counterrevolutionary)
> of wonderful wit but little political acumen. Nothing in this
> discussion suggests otherwise, certainly not weak assertions such as
> "he seems to have..." and "he was hardly likely to..." and so forth. I
> see no reason to think he believed in political violence or imperial
> conquest, and without those convictions statements like 'I am a
> fascist' are worthless, a declaration of love in the back seat of the
> Chevy (or whatever car your UK teens drive these days).
I don't disagree here, and the same goes for those artists who professed
admiration for Stalin's Russia - in their case often never having visited
there or having knowledge of the mass murders, famines, purges, etc. (though
of course some did know, and continued to proclaim support afterwards).
Stravinsky did know a certain amount about the real nature of fascism at the
time he proclaimed himself to be a fascist.
As for whether he supported imperial conquest or not, one can fairly assume
that most Western composers during imperial times didn't show much sign of
opposing it. Do we know what Purcell thought about the colonisation of the
USA? Or Stanford about the genocide in Tasmania? Or Berlioz about the
imperial occupation of large swathes of North Africa? Or Cesar Franck about
the Congo? Perhaps more pertinently, what do we know about Boulez's view on
the Algerian War? Or Carter's on the war in Vietnam?
Anyhow, the point is that even if Stravinsky did support imperial conquest,
that doesn't make him much different to many other artists. The same, alas,
is true of his possible anti-semitism.
Can I ask your view of Ezra Pound in this sort of context? He who saw
Mussolini's Italy as the perfect expression of his own (Pound's) aesthetic
desires?
> To look for a
> relationship between his musical tastes and his political affinities
> is to analyze a Rorschach blot: what you will see depends entirely on
> what you wish to find.
Well, don't you think there's a cult of violence and neo-paganism in Le
Sacre?
Incidentally, I know there's an ongoing debate between Arnold Whittall and
Richard Taruskin on this subject, about whether Stravinsky attempts to
induce the audience to feel pity for the plight of the chosen girl
(Whittall's position) or cynically revel in the spectacle (Taruskin's).
>
> I accepted long ago that even the greatest artists are humans and not
> gods. They drink too much, cheat on their spouses, and are easily
> seduced by demagogues -- some of them even vote Republican. In nearly
> all cases we lose nothing by ignoring or -- to be Christian about it
> -- forgiving such transgressions.
Certainly - I'm primarily interested in how these things relate to their
work, though.
>
> En fin:
>
> Stravinsky's political ideas might be worthless, but his musical ideas
> are certainly priceless. I suggest we apportion our attentions
> accordingly.
>
Stravinsky is undoubtedly a major composer of the 20th century. Wagner is a
major composer of the 19th. Still, I think that looking a little critically
at their work and considering questions of its relationship to the rest of
their outlook shouldn't be off-limits.
Ian
Ian Pace
>
>
> Furthermore: Hitler's vague notions of "German Ideology" also died with
> him. On the other hand, a debased form of Frankfurt Marxism is alive
> and well: it lives on not only in Mr Pace's bizarre analysis of
> Stravinsky but in numerous academic disciplines (the existence of the
> word "Studies" in the name of the school or department is often a
> give-away).
What on earth have the teachings of the Frankfurt School, about the most
fanatical anti-fascists ever known, got to do with any sort of Hitlerian
"German Ideology"?
By the way, I'm hardly the first person to to consider the link between
Stravinsky's authoritarian and pro-fascist views and other aspects of his
music. And I don't necessarily endorse Adorno's wholehearted condemnation of
Stravinsky, or indeed of any form of 'cathartic' art. Still, Adorno's
critique is perhaps the most powerful one of Stravinsky that I know of, and
can't be easily dismissed. When it appeared in the Philosophie der neuen
Musik, I believe little was yet known about Stravinsky's relationship with
Mussolini.
>
> What is even more ironic is that the "impersonal" elements that Mr Pace
> uses to link Stravinsky to Fascism could equally have been used to link
> him to the equally "impersonal" Russian Constructivists,
That's highly debatable - it makes as much sense to describe any abstract
artistic work as "impersonal"
> who flourished
> in the early years of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately most of them
> discovered they had backed the wrong horse. Ironically Stalin's notions
> of "Socialist Realism" differed very little from Hitler's "German
> Culture" when it came to outcomes -- grandiose neo-classical
> architecture, collossal statuary and endless paintings of a smiling,
> fecund peasantry and muscle-bound factory-workers.
>
That is indeed true. A common factor was a totally idealised view, to the
point of meaninglessness, of both the past and the present. The
Constructivists presented a much more humane view, to my mind. Whether the
same can be said of Vorticism and Futurism, with their particular cults of
violence and the machine-age, I'm not so sure. The question of what is a
type of technique, and what is part of a wider aesthetic view, is a very
complicated and difficult one; frequently the two things overlap.
Incidentally, did anyone notice the use of the term 'socialist realism' to
describe the Soviet school of pianism in one of Samuel Feinberg's essays
that was posted here not so long ago? Here's the quote:
'The Soviet pianism continued and deepened the realistic traits typical for
the Russian tradition. This is why one may speak of the principle of the
socialist realism as applied to the Soviet performing art.
One should not close his eyes to the difficulties associated with such
definition. The danger appears not only when we try to find creatively the
true features of the Soviet style or when we find support in the great
achievements of the Soviet pianism. It is dangerous to depart from an
abstract point of view, try to impose dogmatically the features that
seemingly must mark the Soviet performing style.'
Ian
ron...@usa.net
Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> "rkhalona" <rkha...@hotmail.com> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in
> news:1124397386....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
>
> ><<Well, the traditional story is that Stravinsky got his first "big
> > break" because Anatoly Liadov happened to be lazy.
> >
> > Speaking of Stravinsky, a few months back Jim Sjveda on "The Record
> > Shelf" dedicated a program to Eric Coates during which he told the
> > following anecdote (IIRC, it happened in the late 20s):
> >
> > Stravinsky came to Britain at Coates' invitation and stayed at the
> > conductor's house. One morning while having breakfast with Stravinsky,
> > Coates invited the composer to a recording session of Petrushka that
> > Coates was leading (don't remember the orchestra, but it may have been
> > the LSO). Stravinsky declined saying that he preferred to go for a
> > walk. Coates' recording took a few days and every morning Stravinsky
> > declined to go, again sayng that he preferred to walk. Several months
> > later, when Stravinsky was long gone, Coates found out that during his
> > stay at his home, Stravinsky had recorded the same work with another
> > orchestra (Queen's Hall Orchestra?). Apparently he was never invited to
> > Coates' home.
> >
> > If anyone knows this story better, please ammend as necessary.
>
> Those must have been some walks, because I believe Stravinsky's first
> recording of the work (and the only one made during Albert Coates'
> lifetime) was done in Paris.
>
the dates do not concide with Coates, whose recording was made on Oct.
10 & 24, 1927; Jan. 5, 1928; and Feb. 15, 1928. Stravinsky's dates from
June 27-28, 1928.
Ron Whitaker
Matthew B. Tepper
news:1124457999.1...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
> Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
>>
>> Those must have been some walks, because I believe Stravinsky's first
>> recording of the work (and the only one made during Albert Coates'
>> lifetime) was done in Paris.
>>
> Stravinsky's first recording was made in London. The problem is that
> the dates do not concide with Coates, whose recording was made on Oct.
> 10 & 24, 1927; Jan. 5, 1928; and Feb. 15, 1928. Stravinsky's dates from
> June 27-28, 1928.
Thanks for the correction, and a more precise debunking of the story. I
had tried to find a Stravinsky discography online, but the signal-to-noise
ratio on a Google search (no-name vendors offering "Stravinsky songs" for
ostensibly bargain prices, for example) was not in my favor.