Igor Stravinsky, Early years Igor Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, Russia. His father Fyodor Ignat'yevich Stravinsky "descended from a long line of Polish grandees, senators and landowners'' (Walsh, 2017). However, "since the partition of Poland in the 1790s the Stravinskys had come down in the world, lost their lands" (Walsh, 2017). He was a famous operatic baritone and participated in many performances. His mother, Aleksandra Skorokhodova, was a talented pianist with a very attractive singing voice. It is said that he inherited her talent in sight-singing. The household was Stravinsky grew up was not particularly musical. He used to have piano lessons with Aleksandra Snetkova but they were ''no more than a normal part of an upper middle-class domestic …show more content…
Many performances followed resulting in awakening his passion and excitement for music.''His father got him a pass that enabled him to attend most of the opera's rehearsals" (White, 1984) and he would spend most of his nights at the theatre. It is fair to say that although his parents' direct musical contribution during his upbringing and musical development was minimum, their place in the Russian society, his father's career and his connections highly influenced young Stravinsky. Nevertheless, his parents would never allow his to pursue a career in music and thus he entered St Petersburg university to study law. During the course of his studies, he spent most of his time playing the piano, taking part in performance and pursuing his passion for music, therefore, he failed law school due to low attendance. He was lucky to meet Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov who suggested that Igor should consult his father about his musical inspirations and so happened. Rimsky-Korsakov discouraged Stravinsky from joining the conservatoir and strongly suggested that he takes private lessons. Stravinsky became his student and he was taught the art of orchestration, counterpoint and
A conductor may be seen by many as a very important part of a musical but others may see them as unnecessary. Stravinsky feels that conductors don’t deserve the all the attention and respect that is given to them by critics and audiences. The passage tells of how Stravinsky finds conductors to be more of a distraction than talented musicians. In the Passage, Stravinsky uses diction and metaphors to explain his disdain of conductors.
While Tchaikovsky is known for his compositions of classical ballet, he was overall great as a pianist. Like most composers of music, his compositions reflected that of his feelings greatly, which helped him connect to the public and spread his music quite well. As a child, he became better than his teacher in one year, and at the age of ten went to the School of Jurisprudence and quickly completed the upper division classes. After graduating, he did four years at the Ministry of Justice, which didn’t really suite him well. Once out of the Ministry of Justice in the 1860s, he joined the Music Conservatory at the age of 22. Shortly after joining, he composed his first orchestral score in 1864. Two years later, he settled down in Moscow and started to increase his fame as a composer. In the following years he would tour around Europe and even into the United States. In 1893, six days after the premiere of his last piece he
Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 and died on April 6, 1971. He was a Russian classical composer. Stravinsky’s works are mostly neoclassical and serial works and the most representative classic compositions, that are L’Oiseau de feu, which means the fire bird, Petrushka, and Le scare du printemps, which means the rite of spring, represents Stravinsky. Not only composer, Stravinsky was recognized as a pianist and conductor at his works. He also worked on theoretical work, which is called Poetics of Music and he strongly claimed that music is incapable of “expressing anything but itself”. By this writing, he was recognized as a writer. Stravinsky asserted that music is essentially powerless to express something, but he still believed the nature
Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in Vatkinsk, a town about 600 miles east of Moscow. His father, Ilya Petrovich, earned a profitable living by working as a director in the metal working industry and as a mine inspector. His mother Alexandra was a busy housekeeper and mother of six, with Peter being the second oldest. Peter began his studies of music when he was just five years old. Music had became an important pastime to upper-middle class. It was only a short while before Peter's talents began to shine. Peter, after taking some basic lessons, began to have a great feel for the piano. At the age of 10 he enrolled at a Russian boarding school called Jurisprudence in the town of St. Petersburg. There he would study the basic arts where he soon found a passion for music.
Stravinsky's teacher refused to allow Stravinsky to originate; he was forced to learn to play the standard European works of such artists as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and others. Stravinsky spent a lot of time practicing and became skillful on the piano. At fifteen Stravinsky met Ivan Pokrovsky whom introduced him to French music. Igor finished a university law course then he decided to become a musician. While he was studying law, he was also developing his musical talent. After Stravinsky received his law degree he decided he wanted to become a composer. Stravinsky graduated from Saint Petersburg State University and received an international education in music and was influenced by many
In the passage by Igor Stravinsky, he uses not only comparison and contrast, but also language to convey his point of view about the conductors of the time and their extreme egotism. Stravinsky believes that conductors exploit the music for their own personal gain, so rather, he looks on them in a negative light.
Given the name Igor Fydorovich Stravinsky at birth, Sir Igor was born on June 17, 1882. He was a Russian born American performer. He earned his middle name “Fydorovich” from his dad whose first name was Fyodor. He was a naturalized French and American composer, pianist and conductor.
Born as Jan Václav Antonin Stamic and later Germanized as Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, he was an influential composer and violinist. He was born on June 19, 1717 in Deutschbrod, Bohemia, now called Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic. Stamitz received a musical education from his father from a young age, and attended the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague for the academic year of 1734 – 1735, and shortly thereafter left the university to become a violin preformer. In 1741, he was employed as a string player in the court orchestra of Mannheim, Germany. Stamitz went on to marry Maria Antonia Luneborn on July 1, 1744, the couple had 5 children, two of which died in infancy. One of their children, named Carl Phillip Stamitz went on to have a successful musical career. By 1745, he was appointed as the concertmaster of the court orchestra at Mannheim, with a role as the conductor and lead violinist. In the years of 1754 – 1755, he travelled to France to conduct for the Concert Spirituel and the Concert Italien, which were the two most important concert series of 18th – century Paris. He returned to Mannheim in 1755, his health rapidly deteriorated and he died in Mannheim on March 27, 1757 at the age of 39. The entry of his death contains the following quote: “March 30, 1757. Buried, Jo'es Stainmiz, director of court music, so expert in his art that his equal will hardly be found “. Overall, he was an accomplished individual and died at a very young age.
In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory in Saint Petersburg and studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev. Because the conservatory was poorly funded, it did not have heat; the students had to wear coats, hats and gloves constantly only taking off their gloves when composing. Because of these poor living conditions Dmitri developed tuberculosis of the lymph glands in spring 1923 and had to have an operation. Nevertheless, he completed his final piano examinations at the conservatory in June with his neck still bandaged. Shostakovich, though very intelligent and talented, was seen as immature in his fin...
Tchaikovsky attended these musical classes in St. Petersburg Conservatory and this moment in time was a major turning point in his life. Anton Rubinstein was a very significant Russian composer and conductor (also director of the conservatory) and he played a significant role as the centerpiece of Tchaikovsky’s works. Tchaikovsky worked with the Rubinstein brothers, where he learnt harmony, counterpoint and orchestration. Rubinstein’s compositions that incorporated nationalistic elements influenced Tchaikovsky to similarly use this technique in his own music, as Symphony No.2 was a combination of a Russian folk song and classical musical forms.
Pyotr once imagined his head falling off while he was conducting so from then on he would hold his chin with his left hand. He was still one of the best musical students even though he was not the best conductor. He later took the job as a harmony teacher at the Moscow Conservatory in 1866, due to Rubenstein’s recommendation. In 1875 Pyotr’s premiere of his third symphony had been given in Boston on the 25th of October. Even though there had been many people no one really enjoyed his music during that time. His reputation soon began to spread all across Europe. He later married Anotonina Miliukovain 1977, but because he thought she didn’t possess much intelligence he divorced her 9 weeks later. He got into another relationship in the same year. Instead of Pyotr meeting the woman face to face they would write letters to each other. The woman’s name was Nadeshda von Meck, and she had great interest in Pyotr’s work . She would sent him lots of money. Pyotr was emotionally troubled during that time and he took alcohol as a form of relief for him. Later in 1890 the woman stopped sending Pyotr money because she claimed to be broke, but that was not the reason
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, on February 7, 1834. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy was the son of Maria Dmitrievna Korniliev and Ivan Pavlovitch Mendeleev and the youngest of 14 children. Dmitri’s father, Ivan died when Dmitri was still very young and Dmitri’s mother, Maria was left to support her large family. Maria needed money to support all her children, so she took over managing her family’s glass factory in Aremziansk. The family had to pack up and move there.
Young Sergei was quite often considered a problem child, and he was very arrogant. He had out of this world talent however. At the ripeful age of nine Rachmaninoff was enrolled at the College of Music in St. Petersburg. Since Rachmaninoff was arrogant he never bothered to study. Rachmaninoff’s cousin Alexander Siloti helped solve this problem he suggested that Rachmaninoff moved to Moscow and study with the strict teacher Nikolai Zverev, and in 1885 Rachmaninoff made the trip to Moscow to stay with Zverev which he did for three years. In 1888 Rachm...
Anton Chekhov lived in a small town in southern Russia ,called Taganrog, with his mother ,Yevgeniya, and father ,Pevel, and five other siblings. His father owned a small shop in town and his mother tended to their children. After Chekhov's father's business failed his family fled to Moscow to avoid debtor's prison. Chekhov ,sixteen now, was left behind for two years to finish his studies. After reuniting with his family and still studying medicine Chekhov was burdened with the responsibility of providing for his family. Producing as many stories as possible was the only way Chekhov could provide for his family, even after becoming a physician. After writing several notable pieces for newspapers he was contacted by Dimitri Grigorovich who
Stephen Sondheim is a well-known musical theatre composer who has been quite successful with his work. This world-renowned composer has had many prosperous musicals such as West Side Story, Sunday in the Park with George, Assassins, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods. These are only a few out of over twenty of the other musicals he has written. This man’s music is very different from music written by other composers. This certain kind of music has a unique sound that has clashing notes, yet is sounds satisfying and appeals to large audiences.