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Igor stravinsky biography essay
Igor stravinsky biography essay
Igor stravinsky biography essay
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Jordan Sohm
2/12/18
7th grade
Igor Stravinsky
17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971 was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.
Stravinsky became very popular after the success of firebird’s premiere in Paris on 25 June 1910. The composer had travelled from his estate in ustilug to Paris in early June to attend the final rehearsals and the premiere of the Firebird. After their second son sviatoslav soulima was born at a maternity clinic in Lausanne; they moved to Clarens. After spending the summer in la baule, Brittany, they moved to Switzerland in early September. His family finally came with him to Paris as his wife was pregnant with their third child.
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On 8 June, the entire family left Morges for the last time, and moved to the fishing village of Carantec in Brittany for the summer while also looking for a new home in Paris. On hearing of their situation, couturière coco chanel invited Stravinsky and his family to live at her new mansion "Bel Respiro" in the Paris suburb of Garches until they could find a home; they arrived during the second week of September. At the same time, Channel also guaranteed the new (December 1920) Ballets Russes production of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) with an anonymous gift to Diaghilev, said to have been 300,000
Debussy was the first modernist composer; and considered by many to be the greatest French writer, this was because he was not a part of the common fundamental German tradition in music. Instead of following to the rules created at an earlier time for common practice harmony, he liked to make up his own chords, which he called "chords with no names." He is known for composing "Voiles" and "The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun." He was connected to the symbolist poetic movement and known for using selective orchestration. Debussy's famous opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, was completed in 1895. It became a sensation when it was first performed
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.
Conductors are seen as the leader of an orchestra or band and are given most if not all the credit for the music played. For such a simple task that consists of counting the beats, showing the mood for the music, and giving people cues to enter, conductors are as good as their orchestra or band, not by their talent. In this passage by Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky discusses that the work the conductor puts in is negligible to the work the orchestra it self and that concerts should be about the complex qualities of the music played instead of how the conductor impacts the performance.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, also known as W.A. Mozart, was a very well-known composer of the Classical Period as well as still to this day. Wolfgang Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. He was known for his sonatas, symphonies, masses, chamber music, concertos, and operas. He set the standards high for all composers following in his footsteps.
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev is considered one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. Not only was Sergeyevich an accomplished pianist, but he was an outstanding and famous conductor as well. He was infinitely skilled at a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti, operas, program pieces, film music, and ballets. His works were considered both ultra-modern and innovative for their time. Ironically, Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin - 05 March 1953.
While Tchaikovsky is known for his compositions of classical ballet, he was overall great as a pianist. Like most composers of music, his compositions reflected that of his feelings greatly, which helped him connect to the public and spread his music quite well. As a child, he became better than his teacher in one year, and at the age of ten went to the School of Jurisprudence and quickly completed the upper division classes. After graduating, he did four years at the Ministry of Justice, which didn’t really suite him well. Once out of the Ministry of Justice in the 1860s, he joined the Music Conservatory at the age of 22. Shortly after joining, he composed his first orchestral score in 1864. Two years later, he settled down in Moscow and started to increase his fame as a composer. In the following years he would tour around Europe and even into the United States. In 1893, six days after the premiere of his last piece he
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.
It was a freezing January day in the city of Archangelsk, Russia. A man by the name of Dmitri Shostakovich picked up the newest issue of Pravda from the newsstands, which were unusually busy today. “Wow, this is really harsh!” “Are Pravda’s expectations THAT high?” people whispered to one another. After reading it briefly, Shostakovich flew into a fit of frustration and rage. This paper called his music “degenerate and decadent” (Stevens)! There is no way that Pravda would trash his music as badly as this. In fact, the article was written under orders by an upset Josef Stalin. These two Russian titans impacted Russia’s culture between 1930 and 1950. They absolutely hated each other! The tension between the two radiated throughout Shostakovich’s music and Stalin’s iron-fisted attitude towards his symphonies. Stalin manipulated composers to the point of suicide for defying his wishes, and he was not afraid to do that to Shostakovich. Somehow, Shostakovich dared to resist Stalin’s evil ways and went on to become a “brilliant and internationally famous composer.
In the passage by Igor Stravinsky, he uses not only comparison and contrast, but also language to convey his point of view about the conductors of the time and their extreme egotism. Stravinsky believes that conductors exploit the music for their own personal gain, so rather, he looks on them in a negative light.
George Gershwin was arguably the greatest influence on 20th century music. Gershwin’s music was composed of both popular and classical musical genres, but his most popular refrains are extensively known. Gershwin’s work have been used and heard in many movies, plays including Broadway, and fit for television. George Gershwin today remains one of the greatest and most influential musical composers and pianists of all time.
Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770 to Johann van Beethoven and his wife, Maria Magdalena. He took his first music lessons from his father, who was tenor in the choir of the archbishop-elector of Cologne. His father was an unstable, yet ambitious man whose excessive drinking, rough temper and anxiety surprisingly did not diminish Beethoven's love for music. He studied and performed with great success, despite becoming the breadwinner of his household by the time he was 18 years old. His father's increasingly serious alcohol problem and the earlier death of his grandfather in 1773 sent his family into deepening poverty. At first, Beethoven made little impact on the musical society, despite his father's hopes. When he turned 11, he left school and became an assistant organist to Christian Gottlob Neefe at the court of Bonn, learning from him and other musicians. In 1783 he became the continuo player for the Bonn opera and accompanied their rehearsals on keyboard. In 1787, he was sent to Vienna to take further lessons from Mozart. Two months later, however, he was called back to Bonn by the death of his mother. He started to play the viola in the Opera Orchestra in 1789, while also teaching in composing. He met Haydn in 1790, who agreed to teach him in Vienna, and Beethoven then moved to Vienna permanently. He received financial support from Prince Karl Lichnowsky, to whom he dedicated his Piano Sonata in C minor, better known as The Pathétique .
Born as Jan Václav Antonin Stamic and later Germanized as Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, he was an influential composer and violinist. He was born on June 19, 1717 in Deutschbrod, Bohemia, now called Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic. Stamitz received a musical education from his father from a young age, and attended the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague for the academic year of 1734 – 1735, and shortly thereafter left the university to become a violin preformer. In 1741, he was employed as a string player in the court orchestra of Mannheim, Germany. Stamitz went on to marry Maria Antonia Luneborn on July 1, 1744, the couple had 5 children, two of which died in infancy. One of their children, named Carl Phillip Stamitz went on to have a successful musical career. By 1745, he was appointed as the concertmaster of the court orchestra at Mannheim, with a role as the conductor and lead violinist. In the years of 1754 – 1755, he travelled to France to conduct for the Concert Spirituel and the Concert Italien, which were the two most important concert series of 18th – century Paris. He returned to Mannheim in 1755, his health rapidly deteriorated and he died in Mannheim on March 27, 1757 at the age of 39. The entry of his death contains the following quote: “March 30, 1757. Buried, Jo'es Stainmiz, director of court music, so expert in his art that his equal will hardly be found “. Overall, he was an accomplished individual and died at a very young age.
Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. He achieved fame, but with much hardship along the way. He was censored and threatened with not only his life but that of his wife and children by playing the role of a public figure in Soviet Russia. The question is was he a committed communist or a victim? The events in his life, good or bad, shaped the music that he created and led to one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century, his Fifth Symphony.
The music he produced had a lot of control with a lot of flair. He liked improvisation, but did not leave that up to the performer. Instead, he wrote very virtuosic passages for his pieces, with which the performer did not have much room for imaginative playing. Then there is his knowledge on how to writ...
The first thing I will talk about is the type of music he is know for which gave him that name. Most people listen to the type of music he composed but next to none know who or how it was composed. There seems to be an abundance of music fans who know little or nothing about the origin of their music. By discussing what he has accomplished it will explain why he is considered to be so important to his type of music.