Igor Stravinsky 50th Anniversary

摘要

Surely one mark of genius is that even your failures turn out to be successes in the end? The Rite Of Spring's infamous reception at its premiere in Paris in 1913 would have sunk the confidence of a lesser compose Many of those around him were distraught, while the impresario Serge Diaghilev stoked the flames of scandal. At the centre of it all, Stravinsky kept his head. His very earliest works (a muscular Symphony in E flat, a coy little Faun and Shepherdess song-cycle and a newly rediscovered Chant Funebre) reveal him as an accomplished master, who had outstripped even his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov in orchestration. As his first ballet for Diaghilev, The Firebird is already the work of a master. We can see and hear Stravinsky's gift for making music which is colourful, graphic, witty, but which tells us nothing about the composer himself.