Igor's Asymmetry Racket
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Ok so what we've got here might well be the worlds best Cliff Notes on Stravinsky's Earth shaking "Russian Works" written in the first quarter of the 20th century . I have carefully edited together aprox. 10 min. from the 1st 90 min of ( lecture 6 "Poetry of the Earth" from Bernstein's "The Unanswered Question c.1973" ). These 10 min. shine a very bright ,fascinating light on the incomparable revolutionary genius of Igor Stravinsky . sorry 'bout the image quality but it's not about that :-)
Hi Uwe this entire series is available (it is infinitely fascinating to all music fanatics) it is of course on RUclips my old VCR tapes are very imperfect so I am just posting the bits that I find most interesting :-) In hopes of encouraging others to check out the whole lecture series . I am editing together another bunch of excerpts about Stravinsky,and will post soon .
Wonderful series of excerpts! I've watched this particular episode many times. He's so clear in his explanations. His passion for communication---it's inspiring. Love both of these guys, Lenny and Igor. (Did they meet? They must have!)
Oh you're the one who watched this .This is the one that gets no attention but I agree . So clear What a monumental confluence of eye popping innovation and gargantuan creative momentum were these polytonal polyrhythmic Russian Pieces... BUT the Rite what an unmatchable monster . I think even he had to live in it's shadow .
Yes :) There’s a video on RUclips where Bernstein introduces Stravinsky who goes in to conduct the final movement of Firebird
Bernstein was there the moment Stravinsky died… very close confidants
All of these pieces modern as they are are so much easier to listen to than what Schoenberg was doing at this time . I am not casting aspersions on Arnold Schoenberg this is just an observation . Watch "Bernstein on Schoenberg" on my channel .
i remember not really appreciating schoenberg/berg/webern's work before i read some musical essay by adorno -who was, as you know, a student of schoenberg. he described wozzeck's musical organization as the furthest music had come to being purely pyschological. i imagine he meant the music's organization was something similar to the fluxes of mentation itself. adorno really provided for me the idea of how to listen to this music: there was no longer any dissonance because there wasn't any consonance; there was no longer any 'variation' because there was no longer a theme like in the standard variational fare of the romantic era! lo and behold, i was listening with old ears! everything became unvaried variation! composers, and listeners too, would discover hitherto 'musical freedom' by increasing their capacity for randomness! sounds nearly like a spiritual principle, doesn't it? i'm a huge fan of the cecil taylor who passed away a few days ago. the tremendousness of his art and his improvisation cannot be understated. he produced some of the most astounding, alien, unflaggingly abstract, and intensely stimulating music of the last century with his piano. were you a fan?
Talk about a master teacher... Thank you for the uploads.
That´s great news - looking forward to it. I just realized that you posted already some more clips with Bernstein. I´ll check them very soon!
Bless you for these man. What a teacher is LB !
thats so awesome that i found this bernstein lecture(?)
Lenny yelling A B AA B B B AA
was kinda funny
Those were his first words when he was a baby.
Oh you are the one who watched it ! Ah please recommend channel to other like minded folks . PS Thank you !
Thanks for this, Pax - very interesting! Would be great to watch the whole movie, so if you happen to find the time ... :-) Best, Uwe
At aprox 2:50 Lenny is analyzing a particularly nice passage from Le-Sacre where 3 keys are sounding at once . I however did some analysis of this passage and discovered low and behold that this passage reduces down to all but one note of a diminished scale ! Not so random ay? I have a feeling that Stravinsky's work must be full of such submerged congruencies .
If you're still on you tube a video explaining this idea would be phenomenal
Surely it is only analytical theory - after the event - that would try to suggest ‘random’ would apply in this case. Even in a genius of Stravinskys stature you must allow for intuitive preconceptions being the foundation of the material, much of which is probably opaque to the composer himself. The master craftsman - which he most certainly was - has to shape a block of stone that his preconception presented him with, the art hidden within these materials of mixed provenance being shaped by the composers subsequent scrutiny.
@@AboveAverageLabel Dexter, Coletrane, me, Chopin, liked to explore visit the diminished sound and scale and auxiliary diminished too it's nothing new but when isolated it sounds and is polytonal 🤷♂️But it's been studied and internalized it's all organic .
maybe computer programs will assist us analyzing Stravinkian randomness as they do in advanced chess games.
r e c o r d s h o p
it's been a while since this was recorded
All the composers express what they see actually.
I hear Cecil Taylor, which is awesome.
Well CT spent time at the New England Conservatory (apparently at the same time as my mother-in-law?) so he was soaking up some of that Russian stuff..
I grew up with this guy (on TV I mean - not literally, so don't clobber me) - he was my idol. It got sadder towards the end when he left his family and went on drugs and alcohol. What was he running from?
ferociousgumby honestly I don't know his story I just know this lecture series but I know this series well. I also really like his 2nd Symphony The age of Anxiety.
Where's the dog?
great lecture. have another line lenny!!!
graham hawthorne drums This is just a few minutes of a truly great lecture. So if you actually are a musician who gives a damn who wants to understand Stravinsky and early 20th century music (beyond being a snarky little shit trying to sound hip about the tragedy of cocain abuse) then go to channel cagin or Shawn Bay and watch lecture 6 of the unsnswered question. I gaurantee you'll learn something.
Yes, I have seen the entire lecture, and I know quite a bit about Stravinsky and early 20th century music, having played it extensively as a professional musician, studied and practiced it for the last 30+ years, taught it to my students, and attended many performances. In fact nothing is more dear to me than that music. Further, I have watched all of the unanswered question lectures many times over. It was an attempt at humor (making fun of Bernstein's manic nature). Whether or not he was on cocaine is anybody's guess! He was certainly larger than life and many people have made him the brunt of jokes - I think it was Oscar Levant that said about Bernstein, "He uses his music as an accompaniment to his conducting"....
Hah yeah ok, I think we're both equally snarky. Let's be friends and agree that Bernstein and Stravinsky are fantastic, as well as Ravel, Debussy, Sibelius and all the other great ones!
Can anybody name the peace that is playing? :) Starts 9:20
Yup the Rite of Spring
@@paxwallacejazz Thanks. But I mentioned wrong time, I meant 6:32. Maybe you know from which piece is this wonderfuly asimetrical hell? :D Thanks.
I'm so lucky, found it :) It's The Soldier's March from L'Histoire du Soldat.
ambiguity is something that happened all ariund actually
I thought so too :-)
uah! uah 🐻👍👍👍 🌜✨🌛 🌹
meta-symmetry . . . true asymmetry has no pattern.
Take it easy Lenny, as usual, your analytic compulsions are dragging you around by the nose... Igor was certainly a master at his best, but at his worst he could be tiresome and predictable like many another. Wake up call... The soldiers' tale is not a masterpiece, far from it, however it is a very ingenious diverting creation, with lots of asymmetry, as you rightly mentioned.
However, there is very little of memorable content within it, and so, like many another, you have been beguiled by Stravinsky's ability to co-opt one's attention, without necessarily fulfilling any great aesthetic content thereby.
Remember too, Lenny, that with enough explanation and ratiocination, anything, even the New York telephone book, can be made to appear a brilliant creation, when in fact it is a very pedestrian affair from start to finish.
We love your enthusiasm, but that alone does not equal truth. Just look at all the mediocre music you have written, about which the public knows pitiably little... Such as an entire opera entitled a quiet place, with barely one note of music in it!
We so apreciate the benefit of your wisdom. Your Jackal of mediocrity tee shirt is in the mail.
Didn’t know we had such a fine scholar in the midst of us ruffians. why sir, bless us with more of your knowledge that we may reach even halfway to your enlightened state
Who even is Igor Stravinsky? I only listen to the far superior and illustrious Joseph Marcello
@@paxwallacejazz I think he is entitled to his wrong opinion.... however it would be true to say that all great composers wrote a few lesser compositions when tinkering around in the margins of a masterpiece but we accept these works as neccessary fragments in timeline of the creative process leading us to ( or even away from) the composer's masterworks.