Simply Stravinsky: 19 (Great Lives)

Born and raised in St. Petersburg Russia Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) divided his time between law studies and music until 1906 when under the tutelage of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov he dedicated himself exclusively to composition. Five years later he achieved international fame with his ballet scores The Firebird Petrushka and The Rite of Spring the last of which caused a riot at its Paris premiere in 1913. For the next 50 years both Stravinskys music style and his life were characterized by dramatic changes as he moved from his Russian period to neo-classicism to serialism and from Russia to Switzerland to France to the United States. Yet no matter how much his style changed his music was always distinctively his and his compositions remain among the greatest produced in the twentieth century. In Simply Stravinsky Professor Pieter van den Toorn takes a fresh look at the composer and his legacy providing a compact exciting and accessible introduction to the twentieth centurys most celebrated composer and his timeless music. From Stravinskys apprenticeship in St. Petersburg to his life among the émigré community in Southern California Prof. van den Toorn shows how the composers music was tied to his personality and how it came to influence artists from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass. Designed for classical music beginners as well as those who want to know more about one of the great musical innovators Simply Stravinsky is an insightful and highly readable portrait of the man who helped define modern music.