Igor Stravinsky Essay

According to George Dorris, classical ballet music can be divided into two big eras: “the years of the classical multi-act ballets and the two decades of the Diaghilev era”; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky falls into the first one, which lasted from Coppelia in 1870 to Raymonda in 1898. He is certainly one of the mainstays in Russian ballet; his creative works make him the first really gifted professional musician who put an end to the domination of amateurism in Russia. His most popular and famous works

ballet Apollon Musagète was the springboard from which the luminary Stravinsky/Balanchine duo evolved, though its origins had nothing to do with Balanchine. In June 1927, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the American Arts Patron of the Coolidge Foundation at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet to be choreographed by Adolph Bolm and performed in April of the following year. Stravinsky began sketching his compositional plans for Apollo the following month

Timpani and Stravinsky Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and its evolutionary impact towards timpani in an orchestral setting The musical importance and relevance of Stravinsky’s compositions established him as one of the dominant composers of the 20th century. By the early 19th century Stravinsky’s score The Rite of Spring was premiered. The Rite of Spring clearly established Stravinsky as a new and unique composer setting him apart from his previous Russian teacher and composer Rimsky-Korsakov

Dmitri Shostakovich is a renowned Russian composer who was born on September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia. He father Dmitri Boleslavovich, was a chemical engineer and his mother Sofia Kokaoulin was a pianist. They had two daughters and Dmitri was the middle child. Dmitri was exposed to music at an early age. Dmitri Shostakovich’s his talent as a pianist and a composer were seen at an early age, it was predicted that he would be a great composer. He started composing short pieces in 1917. Dmitri’s

Neither the lighthearted Interplay nor (surprisingly, given the excellent cast and Chopin's music) the more serious In the Night made for particularly compelling watching during the first segment of the "All Robbins No. 3" program. Nevertheless, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing either again, especially the latter. By contrast, despite having seen the ballet often during the past few years, the performance of The Cage fascinated me. This ballet contains some of the most inventive and original choreography

While Antheil was living in Paris in the 1920’s, Sylvia Beach introduced him to a filmmaker by the name of Fernand Legér. Together they came up with an idea that would eventually be conceived as Ballet Mécanique. While both the film and the score were created at the same time, the two were very quickly separated into their own separate artistic entities. Inspired by the factory setting he grew up in, and the avant-garde art he was exposed to while living in Paris. The Ballet has had many different

What was Stravinsky trying to accomplish with The Rite of Spring? Why did he include so much dissonance and irregular rhythm? Stravinsky was trying to get fame and publicity with The Rite of Spring. The Rite of Spring, provoked a riot at its première. Depicting various scenes from pagan ritual, the work features sharp dissonances and intense rhythms with abruptly shifting accents. The choreography too was unconventional; the audience, used to the long and graceful lines of classical ballet, was shocked

Modris Eksteins presented a tour-de-force interpretation of the political, social and cultural climate of the early twentieth century. His sources were not merely the more traditional sources of the historian: political, military and economic accounts; rather, he drew from the rich, heady brew of art, music, dance, literature and philosophy as well. Eksteins examined ways in which life influenced, imitated, and even became art. Eksteins argues that life and art, as well as death, became so intermeshed

“I had waited for six long years, and now I was ready, not just to show the world that I was a gifted dancer but that I was a true artist as well” (231). The story of Misty Copeland, a young African American girl, does not begin with her as a talented young dancer; in fact, she didn’t begin ballet until she was thirteen years old. However, she had always loved performing, acting, and dancing, especially when she could achieve her mother’s praise by performing well. When she was finally introduced

Yes, of necessity and up to a point. Any company that wants to present a Balanchine ballet to its audience and has the wherewithal to do so ought to: it does neither his legacy nor the world any good to lock his work up in a cabinet like a rare manuscript that can only be viewed by special permission in a climate-controlled room while wearing white gloves and a surgical mask. Lord knows, that's not how we treat Shakespeare, Beethoven, or Petipa: tastes, technique, and technology change over time