As a famous twentieth century composer, Igor Stravinsky shares his expertise on the music industry and its "worst obstacle"- conductors. He harshly criticizes the conductor's overrated role in music productions with rhetorical devices such as vicious diction, strong imagery, and figurative language. He uses vicious diction to convey his frustration with conductors compromising the integrity of the vary pieces composers like himself write. Moreover, Stravinsky uses figurative language to demonstrate how these conductors infiltrate the music industry like politicians with their charismatic personalities. In addition, he uses figurative language to establish a direct comparison between conductors and actors by accentuating the similarities between their "performances." Stravinsky wholeheartedly believes that conductors possess no measurable talent and seem to relish in their fame. …show more content…
Stravinsky demonstrates his disdain for conductors with vicious diction and figurative language.
He starts by using a simile to compare conducting to politics. Both careers "rarely attract original minds" and involve "exploiting" their personalities. He points out that conductors do not need to have a distinguished musical background or be knowledgeable in the subject of their work. The conductor in comparison with musicians is far less skilled and prepared for the performance and the musicians know it (acknowledge it). Conductors' jobs depend on pleasing "society women (including critics)" who value musical qualities as a secondary importance. Additionally, he describes a "successful" conductor as an "incomplete musician but a complete angular." This emphasizes that the power granted to conductors is implemented through (founded upon) pure politics. OR This emphasizes that although the conductor may be incapable of producing music nonetheless his presentation is a matter of pure
politics. Furthermore, Igor Stravinsky develops his argument against conductors by using rhetoric devices such as imagery and figurative language. He develops an image of conductors as "ego diseased weeds" that flourish and grow under "the sun of a pandering public." In this image, Stravinsky criticizes the conductor's need for attention as well as the audiences for creating these egomaniacs. He also expresses his disdain with vicious diction by describing the conductor as an "egotistical, false, and arbitrary authority." In addition, he picturesquely labels the conductor as the "titan of the podium," which exaggerates the conductor's supposed infallibility as he mounts his stage. He then elaborates with an analogy between "great" conductors and "great" actors. Similar to actors, conductors do not conform to their work but rather have their work adapt to their "style" and mannerisms. They substitute the substance of the song by overly compensating with gestures. This "trap" deceives the audience into believing that the conductor's wild gestures correlate with the composer's masterpiece. These gestures lure the audience into the misconception that the conductor's act is the main display of the performance.
A conductor may be seen by many as a very important part of a musical but others may see them as unnecessary. Stravinsky feels that conductors don’t deserve the all the attention and respect that is given to them by critics and audiences. The passage tells of how Stravinsky finds conductors to be more of a distraction than talented musicians. In the Passage, Stravinsky uses diction and metaphors to explain his disdain of conductors.
Stephen Sondheim is a well-known musical theatre composer who has been quite successful with his work. This world-renowned composer has had many prosperous musicals such as West Side Story, Sunday in the Park with George, Assassins, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods. These are only a few out of over twenty of the other musicals he has written. This man’s music is very different from music written by other composers. This certain kind of music has a unique sound that has clashing notes, yet is sounds satisfying and appeals to large audiences.
Stravinsky, who is a composer, explains that conductors play a role that is un-necessary and that the credit they are given is extremely higher that what they should be getting compared to the orchestra/ band who are actually playing the music. This is exemplified not only by his eloquence, but also his ability to characterize his ideas through imagery. In this statement “The successful conductor can be an incomplete musician, but he must be a complete angler. His first skill has to be power politics” and “the conductor is encouraged to impose a purely egotistical, false, and arbitrary authority… accorded a position out of all proportion to his real value in the musical.” Both of these statements exemplifies the way he phrases his words which also
Tomoff, Kiril. Creative Union: the Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939-1953. New York, NY: Cornell Univ Press, 2006. Print.
In their books: Copland: 1900 through 1942 and Copland: Since 1943, Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis give a detailed account of the life of one of America’s most influential composers. The books are arranged similarly to the Shostakovich biography that our class reviewed earlier this semester. That is, through personal accounts by Copland himself along with accounts of Copland’s friends and acquaintances, the authors manage to paint an accurate and interesting picture detailing the life of the great composer. When combined, the two books recount Copland’s entire life, dividing it into two periods for the purpose of easier organization and reading.
To show his aggravation and irritation, Stravinsky uses the rhetorical device of comparison and contrast to convey his opinion of conductors. He compares the "great" conductors to "great" actors in that "[they] are unable to play anything but themselves". Moreover, being unable to adapt, they have to adapt the work to themselves, not themselves to the work, which is obviously offending to a notable composer such as Stravinsky. In addition, he attributes the egocentric view of the conductors to the attention of the public who make more of the conductor's gestures and appearance than the music quality. The public is then compared to the reviewers and critics, who also "habitually fall into the trap of describing a conductor's appearance rather than the way he makes the music sound." Furthermore, Stravinsky goes on to say, for a public that is incapable of listening, the conductor will tell them what to feel through his gestures. He notes that these people, the conductors, have a high incidence of "ego disease" which "grows like a the sun of a tropical weed under pandering public" illustrating that the conductors perform for and are inspired by th...
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the author of six symphonies and the finest and most popular operas in the Russian repertory. Tchaikovsky was also one of the founders of the school of Russian music. He was a brilliant composer with a creative imagination that helped his career throughout many years. He was completely attached to his art. His life and art were inseparably woven together. "I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote, "for as soon as one piece of work is finished and one would wish to relax, I desire to tackle some new work without delay." The purpose of this paper is to give you a background concerning Tchaikovsky's biography, as well as to discuss his various works of art.
Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 and died on April 6, 1971. He was a Russian classical composer. Stravinsky’s works are mostly neoclassical and serial works and the most representative classic compositions, that are L’Oiseau de feu, which means the fire bird, Petrushka, and Le scare du printemps, which means the rite of spring, represents Stravinsky. Not only composer, Stravinsky was recognized as a pianist and conductor at his works. He also worked on theoretical work, which is called Poetics of Music and he strongly claimed that music is incapable of “expressing anything but itself”. By this writing, he was recognized as a writer. Stravinsky asserted that music is essentially powerless to express something, but he still believed the nature
Putman, D. (1990). THE AESTHETIC RELATION OF MUSICAL PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE. British Journal of Aesthetics. 30 (4), 1-2.
As a youth, Shostakovich believed that he was to be the successor to Beethoven's throne as the compositional genuis. It is safe to assume that no composer until Shostakovich had been so central to the history of his time, or had so consistently sought to symphonically express the sufferings and aspirations of his contemporaries as had Beethoven. Dmitri S...
Elements of this piece that helped shape a new musical language for thee twentieth – century would consist of Stravinsky experimenting with rhythm and new combinations of instruments. The way he uses dissonance in his pieces as well polyphonic and polytonal textures. His ballets were strongly nationalistic but contained rites of Russia in ancient times. On the opening night of The Rite of Spring, he caused a riot to ensue because it wasn’t like a regular ballet, it was totally different. It consisted of no ballet dancing at all, but more of a chant dance, the different melodies and the change in dissonance caused the ballet to be viewed as a frightening experience to some. Spring is something that is viewed as beautiful, light, loving and this ballet showed none of this, from the point of view of those who attended that night.
Van Den Toorn, Pieter. The Music of Igor Stravinsky. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
My composer is known as an influential minimalist and has written a variety of works such as opera, musical theater, symphonies, chamber music, and film scores and much more. This composer’s identity is none other than Philip Glass. The major focus in this paper are to give a moderately brief background on Philip Glass, examining his style of music along with how others view it and describe one of Philip Glass’s musical pieces. The background or bio about Philip Glass has information primary associated with events surrounding his career. When we reach examining Philip Glass’s style of music, people’s opinions on his music and who he sounds similar too is discussed. The final part of paper basically discuss one of Philip Glass’s works and how it serves as an example to his other music.
Igor Stravinsky was a Russian Composer, pianist, and conductor born June 17, 1882. He is considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. Igor’s composing career was noted for being creative and different.
Purpose: The main purpose of the text is indeed to entertain the listener in any way possible whether it be enjoying fab’s witty punch lines or being able to relate to the issues present. Another purpose suggested is to relate with the composer (Fabolous) and gain knowledge of the occurrences experienced by the composer e/g racism or incidents in the area . Fabolous says “I want to bring you in, and let you see my world looking through my eyes.”