Strawinsky

St. Petersburg - Paris - Swiss exile - France - USA, these places refer to stages during the long life of a composer who greatly enriched music history by a plethora of works of different styles. Igor Stravinsky's sophisticated oeuvre has enriched almost all genres: from sonata to solo concerto, from song to opera, from ballet music to symphony. The list of different composition styles mastered by Stravinsky during his creative life is just as multi-faceted: from the style of the first years influenced by his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov to the 'cubist' composition of the scandal-ridden 'Sacre du printemps' for example, from the neoclassicism of 'Pulcinella' to the twelve-note 'Movements' - right up to excursions into jazz music. As a consequence, disorientation and lack of stylistic uniformity respectively were just two of the prejudices Stravinsky was faced with. Such prejudices are countered in this book by Wolfgang Burde who illustrates that the composer never wrote 'à la mode' or 'à la manière de', but always incorporated newly discovered compositional techniques or even specific form models in his personal way of thinking. Here, it becomes apparent why Stravinsky, according to Wolfgang Burde, ranked 'among the most important composers of the European avant-garde next to Claude Debussy and Schoenberg'.