Viola

A viola shown from the front and the side
String instrument
Other names	French: alto; German: Bratsche
Hornbostel–Sachs classification	321.322-71 (Composite chordophone sounded by a bow)
Playing range
135px
Related instruments
Violin family (violin, cello) Viol family (includes double bass)
Musicians
List of violists

The viola ( /viˈoʊlə/ or /vaɪˈoʊlə/)^[1] is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.

Form[link]

The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between 1 inch (25 mm) and 4 inches (100 mm) longer than the body of a full-size violin (i.e., between 15 and 18 inches (38 and 46 cm)), with an average length of 16 inches (41 cm). Small violas for children typically start at 12 inches (30 cm), which is equivalent to a half-size violin. For a child who needs a smaller size, a fractional-sized violin is often strung with the strings of a viola.^[2] Unlike the violin, the viola does not have a standard full size. The body of a viola would need to measure about 20 inches (51 cm) long to match the acoustics of a violin, making it impractical to play in the same manner as the violin.^[3] For centuries, viola makers have experimented with the size and shape of the viola, often adjusting the proportions or shape to make a lighter instrument with shorter string lengths, but which still has a large enough sound box to create an unmistakable 'viola sound'.

Experiments have tended to increase the size of the viola, in the interest of improving the instrument's sound. Hermann Ritter's 'viola alta', which measured about 18.9 inches (48 cm), was intended for use in Wagner's operas.^[4] The Tertis model viola, which has wider bouts and deeper ribs to promote a better tone, is another slightly 'non-standard' shape that allows the player to use a larger instrument. Many experiments with the acoustics of a viola, particularly increasing the size of the body, have resulted in a much deeper tone, making it resemble the tone of a 'cello. Since many composers wrote for a traditional-sized viola, particularly in orchestral music, changes in the tone of a viola can have unintended consequences upon the balance in ensembles.

More recent (and more radically shaped) innovations have addressed the ergonomic problems associated with playing the viola by making it shorter and lighter, while finding ways to keep the traditional sound. These include the Otto Erdesz 'cutaway' viola, which has one shoulder cut out to make shifting easier;^[5] the 'Oak Leaf' viola, which has two extra bouts; viol-shaped violas such as Joseph Curtin's 'Evia' model, which also utilizes a moveable neck and a maple-veneered carbon fibre back, to reduce weight:^[6] violas played in the same manner as cellos (see vertical viola); and the eye-catching "Dalí-esque" shapes of both Bernard Sabatier's violas in fractional sizes - which appear to have melted - and David Rivinus' 'Pellegrina' model violas.^[7]

Other experiments that deal with the "ergonomics vs. sound" problem have appeared. The American composer Harry Partch fitted a viola with a cello neck to allow the use of his 43-tone scale. Luthiers have also created five-stringed violas, which allow a greater playing range. Modern music is played on these instruments, but viol music can be played as well.

Method of playing[link]

Playing a 17" viola in 3rd position.

A person who plays the viola is called a violist or a viola player. The technique required for playing a viola has certain differences compared with that of a violin, partly because of its larger size: the notes are spread out farther along the fingerboard and often require different fingerings. The viola's less responsive strings and the heavier bow warrant a somewhat different bowing technique, and a violist has to lean more intensely on the strings.

• Because of the viola's size, violists with short arms tend to use smaller-sized instruments for easier playing. The most immediately noticeable adjustments that a player accustomed to playing violin has to make are to use wider-spaced fingerings. It is common for some players to use a wider and more intense vibrato in the left hand, facilitated by employing the fleshier pad of the finger rather than the tip, and to hold the bow and right arm further away from the player's body. A violist must bring the left elbow farther forward or around, so as to reach the lowest string, which allows the fingers to press firmly and so create a clearer tone. Unless the violist has especially large hands, different positions are often used, including half position.
• The viola is generally strung with heavier strings than the violin. This, combined with its larger size and lower pitch range, results in a deeper and mellower tone. However, the thicker strings also mean that the viola 'speaks' more slowly. Practically speaking, if a violist and violinist are playing together, the violist must begin moving the bow a fraction of a second sooner than the violinist. The thicker strings also mean that more weight must be applied with the bow to make them speak.

Bow frogs, top to bottom: violin, viola, cello

• The viola's bow has a wider band of horsehair than a violin's bow, which is particularly noticeable near the frog (or 'heel' in the UK). Viola bows 70–74 grams (2.5–2.6 oz) are heavier than violin bows 58–61 grams (2.0–2.2 oz). The profile of the rectangular outside corner of a viola bow frog generally is more rounded than on violin bows.

Tuning[link]

First position viola fingerings

The viola's four strings are normally tuned in fifths: the lowest string is C3 (an octave below middle C), with G3, D4 and A4 above it. This tuning is exactly one fifth below the violin, so that they have three strings in common—G, D, and A—and is one octave above the cello.

Each string of a viola is wrapped around a peg near the scroll and is tuned by turning the peg. Tightening the string raises the pitch; loosening the string lowers the pitch. The 'A' string is normally tuned first, typically to a pitch of 440 Hz or 442 Hz. The other strings are then tuned to it in intervals of perfect fifths, sometimes by bowing two strings simultaneously. Most violas also have adjusters, also called 'fine tuners', that are used to make finer changes. These permit the tension of the string to be adjusted by rotating a small knob at the opposite or tailpiece end of the string. Such tuning is generally easier to learn than using the pegs, and adjusters are usually recommended for younger players and put on smaller violas, although pegs and adjusters are usually used in conjunction with one another. Adjusters work best, and are most useful, on metal strings. It is common to use one on the 'A' string, even if the others are not equipped with them. Some violists reverse the stringing of the C and G pegs, so that the thicker C string does not turn so severe an angle over the nut, although this is uncommon.

Small, temporary tuning adjustments can also be made by stretching a string with the hand. A string may be tuned down by pulling it above the fingerboard, or tuned up by pressing the part of the string in the pegbox. These techniques may be useful in performance, reducing the ill effects of an out-of-tune string until an opportunity to tune properly.

The tuning C-G-D-A is used for the great majority of all viola music. However, other tunings are occasionally employed, both in classical music, where the technique is known as scordatura, and in some folk styles. Mozart, in his Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E flat, wrote the viola part in D major and specified that the viola's strings were to be raised in pitch by a semitone: his intention was probably to give the viola a brighter tone so as to avoid it being overpowered by the rest of the ensemble. Lionel Tertis, in his transcription of the Elgar cello concerto, wrote the slow movement with the 'C' string tuned down to B flat, enabling the viola to play one passage an octave lower. Occasionally the 'C' string may also be tuned up to D.

Organizations and research[link]

A renewal of interest in the viola by performers and composers in the twentieth century has led to increased research devoted to the instrument. Paul Hindemith and Vadim Borisovsky made an early attempt at an organization in 1927 with the Violists' World Union. But it was not until 1968, with the creation of the Viola-Forschungsgellschaft, now the International Viola Society (IVS), that a lasting organization would take hold. The IVS now consists of twelve sections around the world, the largest being the American Viola Society (AVS), which publishes the Journal of the American Viola Society. In addition to the journal, the AVS sponsors the David Dalton Research Competition and the Primrose International Viola Competition.

The 1960s also saw the beginning of several research publications devoted to the viola, beginning with Franz Zeyringer's Literatur für Viola, which has undergone several versions, the most recent being in 1985. In 1980, Maurice Riley produced the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the viola in his History of the Viola, which was followed with a second volume in 1991. The IVS published the multi-language Viola Yearbook (from 1979 to 1994): several other national sections of the IVS publish newsletters. The Primrose International Viola Archive at Brigham Young University houses the greatest amount of material that is related to the viola, including scores, recordings, instruments and archival materials from some of the world's greatest violists.

Music[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Reading music[link]

Music that is written for the viola differs from that of other instruments, in that it primarily uses the alto clef, which is otherwise rarely used. Viola music employs the treble clef when there are substantial sections of music written in a higher register. In the alto clef, the note A4 is above the top line of the clef, D4 is in the second space down, G3 is in the space at the bottom of the staff, and C3 is two spaces under the staff. In treble clef, the note A4 is the second space, D4 is one space under the staff, and so on.

Role in pre-twentieth century works[link]

In early orchestral music, the viola part was frequently limited to filling in harmonies and little melodic material was assigned to it. If the viola was given a melodic part, it was often duplicated (or was in unison with) the melody played by other strings. A notable exception is the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 composed by J. S. Bach, scored for 2 violas, cello, 2 violas da gamba, and continuo, in which the two violas were placed in the primary melodic role.

There are a few Baroque and Classical concerti, such as those by Telemann (one of the earliest viola concertos known), Franz Anton Hoffmeister and Carl Stamitz. Hector Berlioz's Harold in Italy was written for solo viola and orchestra.

The viola plays an important role in chamber music. Mozart liberated the viola when he wrote his six string quintets, some of which are considered to be his greatest works. The quintets use two violas, which frees them (especially the first viola) for solo passages and increases the variety and richness of the ensemble. Mozart also wrote for the viola in his Sinfonia Concertante in which the solo viola and violin are equally important, a set of two duets for violin and viola, and the Kegelstatt Trio for viola, clarinet, and piano. The young Felix Mendelssohn wrote a little-known viola sonata in C minor (without opus number, but dating from 1824). From his earliest works, Brahms wrote music that prominently featured the viola. Among his first published pieces of chamber music, the sextets for strings Op.18 and Op.36 contain what amounts to solo parts for both violas. Late in life he wrote two greatly admired sonatas for clarinet and piano, his Op.120 (1894): he later transcribed these works for the viola (the solo part in his horn trio is also available in a transcription for viola). Brahms also wrote 'Two Songs for Alto with Viola and Piano', Op. 91, 'Gestillte Sehnsucht' ('Satisfied Longing') and 'Geistliches Wiegenlied ('Spiritual Lullaby') as presents for the famous violinist Joseph Joachim and his wife, Amalie. Dvořák played the viola and apparently said that it was his favorite instrument: his chamber music is rich in important parts for the viola. Another Czech composer, Bedřich Smetana, included a significant viola part in his quartet "From My Life": the quartet begins with an impassioned statement by the viola. It should also be noted that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven all occasionally played the viola part in chamber music.

The viola occasionally has a major role in orchestral music, a prominent example being Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Quixote for solo cello and viola and orchestra. Other examples are the "Ysobel" variation of Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations and the "La Paix" movement of Léo Delibes's ballet Coppélia which features a lengthy solo for viola.

While the viola repertoire is quite large, the amount written by well-known pre-twentieth century composers is relatively small. There are many transcriptions of works for other instruments for the viola and the large number of 20th-century compositions is very diverse. See 'The Viola Project' at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where Professor of Viola Jodi Levitz has paired a composer with each of her students, resulting in a recital of brand-new works played for the very first time.

Twentieth century and beyond[link]

In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis. Englishmen Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote chamber and concert works for Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů and Béla Bartók wrote well-known viola concertos. Paul Hindemith wrote a substantial amount of music for the viola; being himself a violist, he often performed his own works. Claude Debussy's Sonata for flute, viola and harp has inspired a significant number of other composers to write for this combination. Charles Wuorinen composed his virtuosic Viola Variations in 2008 for Lois Martin. Elliott Carter also wrote several fine works for viola including his Elegy (1943) for viola and piano; it was subsequently transcribed for clarinet. Ernest Bloch, a Swiss-born American composer best known for his compositions inspired by Jewish music, wrote two famous works for viola, the Suite 1919 and the Suite hebraïque for solo viola and orchestra. Rebecca Clarke was a 20th century composer and violist who also wrote extensively for the viola. Lionel Tertis records that Edward Elgar (whose cello concerto Tertis transcribed for viola, with the slow movement in scordatura), Alexander Glazunov (who wrote an Elegy, op. 44, for viola and piano), and Maurice Ravel all promised concertos for viola, yet all three died before doing any substantial work on them. In the latter part of the 20th century a substantial repertoire was produced for the viola; many composers including Miklós Rózsa, Revol Bunin, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli and Krzysztof Penderecki, have written viola concertos. The American composer Morton Feldman wrote a series of works entitled The Viola in My Life, which feature concertante viola parts. In spectral music, the viola has been sought after because of its lower overtone partials that are more easily heard than on the violin. Spectral composers like Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, and Horaţiu Rădulescu have written solo works for viola.

Contemporary pop music[link]

The viola is sometimes used in contemporary popular music, mostly in the avant-garde. John Cale of The Velvet Underground used the viola, as do some modern groups such as alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs, folk duo John & Mary, Defiance, Ohio, The Funetics, Flobots, Beethoven's 5th, British Sea Power, Hangedup and others. Jazz music has also seen its share of violists, from those used in string sections in the early 1900s to a handful of quartets and soloists emerging from the 1960s onward. It is quite unusual though, to use individual string instruments in contemporary popular music. It is usually the flute or rather the full orchestra appearing to be the favoured choice, rather than a lone string player. The upper strings could be easily drowned out by the other instruments, especially if electric, or even by the singer.The viola is musical.

Viola in folk music[link]

3-stringed viola, used in Hungarian and Romanian folk music

Although not as commonly used as the violin in folk music, the viola is nevertheless used by many folk musicians across the world. Extensive research into the historical and current use of the viola in folk music has been carried out by Dr. Lindsay Aitkenhead. Players in this genre include Eliza Carthy, Mary Ramsey, Helen Bell, and Nancy Kerr. Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was the viola's most prominent exponent in the genre of blues.

The viola is also an important accompaniment instrument in Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian folk string band music, especially in Transylvania. Here the instrument has three strings tuned g — d' - a (note that the a is an octave lower than found on the standard instrument), and the bridge is flattened with the instrument playing chords in a strongly rhythmic manner. In this usage, it is called a kontra or brácsa (pronounced "bra-cha", from German Bratsche, "viola").

Violists[link]

There are few truly well-known viola virtuosi, perhaps because little virtuoso viola music was written before the twentieth century. Pre-twentieth century viola players of note include Alessandro Rolla, Antonio Rolla, Chrétien Urhan, Casimir Ney, Louis van Waefelghem, and Hermann Ritter. The most important viola pioneers from the twentieth century were Lionel Tertis, William Primrose, Paul Hindemith, Théophile Laforge, Cecil Aronowitz, Maurice Vieux, Vadim Borisovsky, Lillian Fuchs, Frederick Riddle, Walter Trampler, Ernst Wallfisch, Csaba Erdélyi, the only violist to ever win the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition, and Emanuel Vardi, the first violist to record the 24 Caprices by Paganini on viola. Many noted violinists have publicly performed and recorded on the viola as well, among them Eugène Ysaÿe, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov, Julian Rachlin and Nigel Kennedy.

Among the great composers, several preferred the viola to the violin when playing in ensembles,^[8] the most noted being Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach^[9] and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Numerous other composers also chose to play the viola in ensembles, including Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Antonín Dvořák, and Benjamin Britten. Among those noted both as violists and as composers are Rebecca Clarke and Paul Hindemith. Contemporary composer and violist Kenji Bunch has written a number of viola solos.

Electric violas[link]

Amplification and equalization can make up for the weaker output of a violin string tuned to notes below G3, so most electric instruments with lower strings are violin-sized, and as such, are called "violins." Comparatively fewer electric violas do exist, for those who prefer the physical size or familiar touch references of a viola-sized instrument. Welsh musician John Cale, formerly of The Velvet Underground, is one of the more famous users of such an electric viola, who has used them both for melodies in his solo work and for drones in his work with The Velvet Underground (e.g. "Venus in Furs").

Instruments may be built with an internal preamplifier, or may put out the unbuffered transducer signal. While such raw signals may be fed directly to an amplifier or mixing board, they often benefit from an external preamp/equalizer on the end of a short cable, before being fed to the sound system.

Audio examples[link]

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Viola (music)

• List of compositions for viola
• Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition
• Maurice Vieux International Viola Competition
• Primrose International Viola Competition
• American Viola Society
• International Viola Society
• Tenor violin
• Vertical viola
• Viola d'amore
• Garrod's pad

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Dalton, David. "The Viola & Violists." Primrose International Viola Archive. Retrieved October 8, 2006
• Chapman, Eric. "Joseph Curtin and the Evia". Journal of the American Viola Society, Vol.20, No.1, Spring 2004, pp. 41–42.
• Curtin, Joseph. "Otto Erdesz Remembered". The Strad, November 2000. Retrieved July 30, 2006
• Curtin, Joseph. "Project Evia" (Retrieved October 8, 2006). American Lutherie Journal, No. 60, Winter 1999.
• Maurice, Joseph. "Michael Balling: Pioneer German Solo Violist with a New Zealand Interlude." Journal of the American Viola Society, Summer 2003. Retrieved July 31, 2006.

External links[link]

• American Viola Society website
• Primrose International Viola Archive library website
• International Viola Society website
• Viola web site, with links to resources & viola societies
• Rivinus- David Rivinus' site with pictures of his oddly shaped violas
• Curtin - Joseph Curtin's "Evia" (Experimental viola) model
• Oliver Viola
• Milward Violas - David Milward's site. Contemporary viola design and build, information and articles.
• Viola in music - The role of viola in music. Information, description of works, videos, free sheet music, MIDI files, RSS update.
• Anechoic Recordings of Viola Tones - University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios
• Brothers Gahl fighting violism – a film made by the Oslo String Quartet
• Dr. Lindsay Aitkenhead's folk viola research page.
• Nigel Keay's Contemporary Viola - Articles with a focus on contemporary repertoire for the viola.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Viola". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.  Very brief, but it does have names for the viola in French, German and Italian.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2010)

The Basics
The Basics at the Oxford Art Factory, 2010
Background information
Origin	Melbourne, Australia
Genres	Rock
Years active	2002–present
Labels	Independent, Albert Records
Associated acts	Gotye, Down Hills Home, Dog With Wheels, Blood Red Bird
Website	The Basics Official Website
Members
Wally De Backer Kris Schroeder Tim Heath
Past members
Michael Hubbard
Notable instruments
Lead guitar, drums, bass guitar.

The Basics ( /ˈbæzɪtʃ/ BAZZ-ich) are a three-piece band from Melbourne, Australia, formed by Wally De Backer and Kris Schroeder in 2002. Their style has been described as anything from 'indie-pop' to 'rock'n'roll' to 'pop-rock', though their records show they span a wide range of genres, including reggae, ska, country, and electro-pop. They are "recognised as one of Australia's hardest-working bands".^[1]

With close to 1000 shows in their ten-year career, their live performances are well-known for their sense of humour and energy.^[2]

Formation[link]

The Basics were formed after Kris met Wally at a party in Melbourne.^[3] The event was to see off the young aspiring producer, who was about to depart for Los Angeles, and together with a number of musician friends, the two jammed on some blues-rock standards. Later that night, they bonded over a mutual love of The Beatles, 70s and 80s cartoon theme songs and old Sierra adventure games.

Initially, they played around Melbourne as an acoustic guitar/drums combo, starting at The Opposition in Frankston and the House of Fools in Footscray, where in late 2002 they met Michael Hubbard and later invited him to join them on electric guitar.^[4] Though lacking any real experience with the instrument, Kris willingly purchased his first bass guitar, and the trio was born. During this time, the group start performing songs with more complicated three-part harmony.

During late 2002 and early 2003, The Basics recorded and released an album called Get Back through MGM Distribution. They began what was to become regular tours of the East and West coasts of Australia.

2004-2005: Current lineup[link]

Tim Heath joined the group in June 2004, after Michael decided to pursue his solo career, which has included being one half of Down Hills Home.^[4] Tim was reportedly the only person to reply to an advertisement in Melbourne's Beat Magazine looking for a new guitarist. Tim apparently answered the advertisement - which said the applicant "must have a love of 50s and 60s rock'n'roll" - thinking that he would be meeting "a couple of old guys to play with on the weekends over some beers". They soon recorded For Girls Like You.

The Basics in 2005 continued to tour and play small festivals, and after releasing For Girls Like You through MGM Distribution, they departed for a national tour of Australia, which lasted for two months and took them to every Australian state and territory. Stuart Padbury, a young Melbourne sound engineer, joined them on much of this tour. On returning, the band began demonstrating songs for a new album.

2006-2009: Touring and soundtracks[link]

In 2006, The Basics began recording what was to become known as Stand Out/Fit In. Taking several months, it was not completed until the end of the year, despite intentions to have it released in June. Instead, they held a successful 'album preview', where each of the tracks was demonstrated in 'rough form' accompanied by a music video for each (produced by Melbourne photographic artist James Bryans). The band also talked about the origins of the songs. This event brought a lot of attention to the band for the idea's originality. They pre-released a radio single 'Just Hold On' from the album. The band were invited to play the hugely popular Homebake Festival in Sydney, where they received a great response, after being introduced onto the stage by a short stocky Asian guy with big calves ("one of the highlights" wrote The Daily Telegraph).

In 2007, the band departed on a tri-state residency which saw them play Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane every week for the month of April - a bold move which brought further attention to the band for its original idea.^[5] Riding on the wave of this tour, Schroeder, De Backer and Heath departed on their first overseas tour which saw them performing 26 shows around Japan, Norway and the United Kingdom.^[6] They also toured twice more up the East Coast, one of which was with popular Japanese band The Bawdies. Their song 'Rattle My Chain' was used in a series of commercials for Volvo Australia. The song 'Hey There!' featured in the British film The Bank Job - starring Jason Statham - and was used as the backing for a February 2007 short film directed by Tim Longhurst called The Rip. Their song 'Better' was featured in a surfing documentary about the invention of the shortboard in 1967.

In 2008, the band appeared on Australia's Channel 9 for Australia Day celebrations, performing two of their songs - 'Just Hold On' and 'Hey There!' - to an estimated audience of 2 million. Securing an Australian Government grant, they embarked on a two-month tour of Australia, specifically targeting "culturally underprivileged groups" in rural and regional schoolchildren and Indigenous communities. The programme had them holding masterclasses and performing alongside Indigenous groups in the remote Northern Territory and Queensland.^[7][8] Their initiative also had them raising money for the charity Lifeline^{[disambiguation needed ]}, their contribution to which was recognised with a plaque at the end of the tour. Season two of Californication starring David Duchovny featured their cover of the classic 'Have Love, Will Travel', most famously covered by 'The Sonics'.

In 2009, The Basics for the first time enjoyed the support of Australian radio network Triple J, which had reportedly snubbed the band's previous material.^[9] The singles 'With This Ship' and 'Like A Brother' were added to the station's playlist, and momentum carried The Basics overseas for a second tour of the United Kingdom and Norway, and also a series of shows in Dublin, Ireland. They were joined by the longtime front-of-house engineer Stuart Padbury, who had been mixing them since 2005. The band was often seen in the Grafton Street Mall in Dublin, busking to promote their concerts there. Their second show in Oslo, Norway, saw the band perform with Hot Tub, one of the members of the Norwegian boy band "Boyzvoice", in his first performance for several years. Season Eight of Scrubs featured the song 'Lookin' Over My Shoulder'.

Despite all this promise, the band's album Keep Your Friends Close - produced and part-recorded by Peter Cobbin at London's Abbey Road Studios - though enjoying many favourable reviews,^{[10][11][12][13]} failed to impress Richard Kingsmill, music director of Triple J. This effectively ended the band's apparent upward spiral and the resulting album launch tour was reportedly "trying".

2010: Hiatus and live album[link]

In 2010, following the band's fourth stint at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, and the recording of a yet-unreleased live album, an indefinite hiatus was announced on the band's websites. This was in part due to the impending release of a new album produced by Wally for his Gotye project, and also to reported tensions within the band following the previous year's disappointments.

However, this hiatus was soon broken with a two-month residency at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne, which saw an apparent return to form.^[14] The band's EP "Wait For You" enjoys airplay on Triple J.^[15] The Basics also played a one-off show at Sydney's Oxford Art Factory.^[16]

On 20 August 2010, The Basics released their fourth LP /ðəˈbæzɪtʃ/, available free and exclusively from their website for digital download^[17]. The band had reportedly moved to expand their listenership through this free giveaway, though 300 "Deluxe" CD/vinyl versions have been printed. /ðəˈbæzɪtʃ/ was recorded at the Northcote Social Club on 6 February, "in front of a live studio audience", and like the previous record, was mixed by Peter Cobbin at Abbey Road Studios. Technically a self-titled album, the phonetics spell out the accurate pronunciation of the band’s name. Kris Schroeder: "For years we’ve worked at bringing our live energy into the studio and thus far it’s been a bit hit-and-miss. Our trick this time was to pull a switcheroo and bring the studio to us instead; the result is the best and closest to us we’ve sounded yet."

Melbourne thespian and Dog With Wheels bassist David Bramble - friends with Heath from university days - has occasionally joined the band on tour, playing keys, often while sporting a large moustache. Other guests have included Jake Mason (saxophone), also of Cookin' on 3 Burners and The Bamboos^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Gideon Brazil (saxophone, flute), Simon Imrei (guitar and vocals) and Monty MacKenzie (saxophone).

Covers have often made an appearance from various sources: to date, some of the bands covered have been Cream, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Police, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, New Kids on the Block, Richard Berry, Sonny Curtis and The Crickets, JJ Cale, Harry Nilsson, Bill Scott, Ryan Adams and The Coasters (via The Beatles for their cover of Three Cool Cats).

Members[link]

Current

• Wally De Backer - drums, vocals (2002-present)
• Kris Schroeder - bass, vocals (2002-present)
• Tim Heath - guitar, vocals (2004-present)

Former

• Michael Hubbard - guitar, vocals (2002-2004)

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Get Back (15 January 2004)
• Stand Out/Fit In (5 May 2007)
• Keep Your Friends Close (25 September 2009)
• /ðəˈbæzɪtʃ/ (20 August 2010)

EP[link]

• For Girls Like You (11 July 2005)
• Lookin' Over My Shoulder (10 February 2007)
• Like A Brother (5 June 2009)
• Wait For You (21 May 2010)

Singles[link]

• Call It Rhythm & Blues (20 August 2004)
• Just Hold On
• With This Ship (22 February 2009)

Upcoming projects[link]

The band is taking a three year hiatus, with an announced return to the stage together in early 2014. Wally De Backer launched Making Mirrors under his Gotye act in August 2011, Tim Heath will be touring and recording with Blood Red Bird, and Kris Schroeder recorded a solo EP titled, Patience in the Face of Control, before leaving Australia to work with the Red Cross in Kenya for a two year sabbatical.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Myspace Website

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (sometimes spelled Strawinsky or Stravinskii; Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский, transliterated: Igorʹ Fëdorovič Stravinskij; Russian pronunciation: [ˌiɡərʲ ˌfʲjodɐrɐvʲɪtɕ strɐˈvʲinskʲɪj]; 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian, and later French and American composer, pianist and conductor. He is acknowledged by many as one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.

Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). The Rite of Spring, which provoked a riot during its premiere, transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His so-called Russian phase was followed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned to neoclassical music. The works from this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue and symphony). They frequently concealed a vein of intense emotion beneath a surface appearance of detachment or austerity and often paid tribute to the music of earlier masters, for example J.S. Bach and Tchaikovsky. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures. His compositions of this period shared traits with examples of his earlier output: rhythmic energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells and clarity of form, of instrumentation and of utterance.

Life and career[link]

Early life in Russia[link]

Igor Stravinsky, 1903

Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in the Russian resort town of Oranienbaum^[1] and was brought up in Saint Petersburg.^[2] His parents were Fyodor Stravinsky, a bass singer at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, and Anna Kholodovsky.^[3] He recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that "I never came across anyone who had any real attraction for me".^[4] During his boyhood, Stravinsky began piano lessons, studied music theory and attempted some composition. In 1890, he was mesmerised by his first exposure to an orchestra, when he saw a performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre: by the age of fifteen, he had mastered Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G minor and finished a piano reduction of a string quartet by Glazunov, who considered the young Stravinsky to be unmusical and thought little of his composition skills.^[5]

Despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to become a lawyer. Stravinsky enrolled to study law at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, but he attended fewer than fifty class sessions during his four years of study.^[6] In the summer of 1902 Stravinsky stayed with the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and his family in the German city of Heidelberg, where Rimsky-Korsakov, arguably the leading Russian composer at that time, suggested to Stravinsky that he should not enter the Saint Petersburg Conservatoire, but instead study composing by taking private lessons, in large part because of his age.^[7] Stravinsksy's father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law.^[8] The university was closed for two months in the spring of 1905 in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday:^[9] Stravinsky was prevented from taking his final law examinations and later received a half-course diploma in April 1906.^[3] Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music. In 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father.^[6] These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakov's death in 1908.^[10]

In 1905 he was betrothed to his cousin Katerina (Catherine) Gabrielovna Nossenko, whom he had known since early childhood.^[11] In spite of the Orthodox Church's opposition to marriage between first cousins, the couple married on 23 January 1906: their first two children, Fyodor (Theodore) and Ludmilla, were born in 1907 and 1908.^[12]

A costume sketch by Léon Bakst for The Firebird

In February 1909, two orchestral works, the Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice (Fireworks) were performed at a concert in Saint Petersburg, where they were heard by Sergei Diaghilev, who was at that time involved in planning to present Russian opera and ballet in Paris. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a full-length ballet score, The Firebird.^[13]

Life in Switzerland[link]

Vaslav Nijinsky as Petrushka in 1910–11

Stravinsky travelled to Paris in 1910 to attend the final rehearsals and the premiere of The Firebird. His family joined him before the end of the ballet season that year and they decided to remain in the West for a time, as his wife was expecting their third child. They moved to Switzerland, living in Clarens and then Lausanne where, in September 1910, their second son Siatoslav Soulima was born.^[14] A second daughter, Maria Milena, was born in 1913. While pregnant with Maria Milena, Catherine was found to have tuberculosis and she was placed in a Swiss sanatorium in Leysin for her confinement.^[15]

Over the next four years Stravinsky and his family lived in Russia during the summer months and spent each winter in Switzerland, which became a second home to them.^[16] During this period Stravinsky composed three further works for the Ballets Russes—Petrushka, a ballet in four scenes (1911), the two-part ballet The Rite of Spring (1913) and his 'ballet with song' in one act, Pulcinella (1920).^[17] He briefly travelled to Russia in July 1914 to collect research materials for his dance cantata Les noces before returning to Switzerland, just before the national borders closed following the outbreak of World War I.^[18] He was not to return to his homeland for nearly fifty years.

The family struggled financially during this period. Russia (and its successor the USSR) did not adhere to the Berne convention and this created problems for Stravinsky when collecting royalties for the performances of all his Ballet Russes compositions.^[19] Stravinsky blamed Diaghilev for his finanical troubles, whom he accused of failing to live up to the terms of a contract they had signed.^[8] He approached the Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart for financial assistance during the time he was writing Histoire du soldat (The Soldier's Tale). Reinhart sponsored and largely underwrote its first performance, which was conducted by Ernest Ansermet on 28 September 1918 at the Theatre Municipal de Lausanne.^[20] In gratitude, Stravinsky dedicated the work to Reinhart and gave him the original manuscript.^[21] Reinhart supported Stravinsky further when he funded a series of concerts of his chamber music in 1919: Included was a suite from Histoire du soldat arranged for violin, piano and clarinet,^[22] which was first performed on 8 November 1919, in Lausanne.^[23] In gratitude to his benefactor, Stravinsky also dedicated his Three Pieces for Clarinet (October–November 1918) to Reinhart, who was an excellent amateur clarinettist.^[24]

Life in France[link]

Igor Stravinsky in 1921

Stravinsky moved with his family to France in 1920,^[25] He formed a business and musical relationship with the French piano manufacturing company Pleyel. Pleyel essentially acted as his agent in collecting mechanical royalties for his works and provided him with a monthly income and a studio space at its headquarters in which he could work and entertain friends and business acquaintances.^[26] Under the terms of his contract with the company, Stravinsky agreed to arrange (and to some extent re-compose) many of his early works for the Pleyela, Pleyel's brand of player piano.^[27] He did so in a way that made full use of all of the piano's eighty-eight notes, without regard for human fingers or hands. The rolls were not recorded, but were instead marked up from a combination of manuscript fragments and handwritten notes by the French musician Jacques Larmanjat, the musical director of Pleyel's roll department. Among the compositions that were issued on the Pleyela piano rolls are The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, The Firebird and Song of the Nightingale. During the 1920s, Stravinsky recorded Duo-Art rolls for the Aeolian Company in both London and New York, not all of which have survived.^[28]

Patronage was never far away. In the early 1920s, Leopold Stokowski gave Stravinsky regular support through a pseudonymous 'benefactor'.^[29] The composer was also able to attract commissions: most of his work from The Firebird onwards was written for specific occasions and was paid for generously.^{[citation needed]}

Vera Stravinsky

Stravinsky met Vera de Bosset in Paris in February 1921,^[30] when she was married to the painter and stage designer Serge Sudeikin, and they began an affair which led to Vera leaving her husband.^[31] From then until his wife's death in 1939, Stravinsky led a double life, spending some of his time with his first family and the rest with Vera.^[32] Catherine bore her husband's infidelity "with a mixture of magnaminity, bitterness, and compassion", passively accepting it as inevitable and permanent.^[33]

After living near Paris for a short while, the Stravinsky family moved to the south of France, becoming French citizens in 1934 and returning to Paris that year, to live at the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.^[34] Stravinsky later remembered this last European address as his unhappiest, as his wife's tuberculosis infected both himself and his eldest daughter Ludmila. Ludmila died in 1938 and Catherine, to whom he had been married for 33 years, died of tubercolosis a year later.^[35] Stravinsky himself spent five months in hospital, during which time his mother died.^[36]

During his later years in Paris, Stravinsky had developed professional relationships with key people in the United States: he was already working on his Symphony in C for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra^[37] and he had agreed to deliver lectures at Harvard during 1939.^[38] A few months after World War II broke out in September 1939, Stravinsky moved to the United States. Vera followed him the following year and they were married in Bedford, Massachusetts on 9 March 1940.^[39]

Life in America[link]

The Essex House in New York, where Stravinsky lived to the end of his life

Stravinsky settled in Los Angeles, living at 1260 North Wetherly Drive, West Hollywood.^[40] He spent more time living in Los Angeles than in any other city.^[41] He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1945.^[42]

Stravinsky had adapted to life in France, but moving to America at the age of 58 was a very different prospect. For a while, he maintained a circle of contacts and emigré friends from Russia, but he eventually found that this did not sustain his intellectual and professional life. He was drawn to the growing cultural life of Los Angeles, especially during World War II, when so many writers, musicians, composers and conductors settled in the area: these included Otto Klemperer, Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, George Balanchine and Arthur Rubinstein. He lived near to Arnold Schoenberg, though he did not have a close relationship with him. Bernard Holland notes that he was especially fond of British writers, who often visited him in Beverly Hills, "like W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Dylan Thomas. They shared the composer's taste for hard spirits - especially Aldous Huxley, with whom Stravinsky spoke in French".^[43] Stravinsky sometimes conducted concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the famous Hollywood Bowl and he conducted other orchestras throughout the United States. His plans to write an opera with W. H. Auden coincided with a meeting with the musicologist Robert Craft, who became Stravinsky's interpreter, chronicler, assistant conductor and factotum for countless musical and social tasks, living with him until his death.

Grave of Stravinsky in San Michele Island, Venice

Stravinsky's unconventional major seventh chord in his arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" led to an incident with the Boston police on 15 January 1944, but he was only warned that the authorities could impose a $100 fine upon any "rearrangement of the national anthem in whole or in part".^[44][45][46] The incident soon established itself as a myth, in which Stravinsky was supposedly arrested for playing the music.^[47]

Stravinsky was on the lot of Paramount Pictures during the recording of the musical score to the 1956 film The Court Jester. The red 'recording in progress' light was illuminated to prevent interruptions and Vic Schoen, the composer of the score, had started to conduct a cue, but at that moment he saw that the entire orchestra had turned to look at Stravinsky, who had just walked into the studio. Schoen said, "The entire room was astonished to see this short little man with a big chest walk in and listen to our session. I later talked with him after we were done recording. We went and got a cup of coffee together. After listening to my music Stravinsky told me, "You have broken all the rules". At the time I didn't understand his comment, because I had been self-taught. It took me years to figure out what he had meant".^{[cite this quote]}

Stravinsky's professional life encompassed most of the 20th century, including many of its modern classical music styles, and he influenced composers both during and after his lifetime. In 1959, he was awarded the Sonning Award, Denmark's highest musical honour. In 1962, he accepted an invitation to return to Leningrad for a series of concerts. During his stay in the USSR, he visited Moscow and met several leading Soviet composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian.^[48]

In 1969, Stravinsky moved to the Essex House in New York, where he lived until his death in 1971 at the age of 88. He was buried in Venice on the cemetery island of San Michele, close to the tomb of his long-time collaborator Diaghilev.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1987 he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

Personality[link]

Stravinsky displayed an inexhaustible desire to explore and learn about art, literature and life, which manifested itself in several of his Paris collaborations. Not only was he the principal composer for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, but he also collaborated with Picasso (Pulcinella, 1920), Jean Cocteau (Oedipus Rex, 1927) and George Balanchine (Apollon musagète, 1928). His taste in literature was wide and reflected his constant desire for new discoveries. The texts and literary sources for his work began with a period of interest in Russian folklore, which progressed to classical authors and the Latin liturgy and moved on to contemporary France (André Gide, in Persephone) and eventually English literature, including Auden, T. S. Eliot and medieval English verse.

According to Robert Craft, Stravinsky remained a confirmed monarchist throughout his life and loathed the Bolsheviks from the very beginning.^[49] In 1930, he remarked, "I don't believe that anyone venerates Mussolini more than I... I know many exalted personages, and my artist's mind does not shrink from political and social issues. Well, after having seen so many events and so many more or less representative men, I have an overpowering urge to render homage to your Duce. He is the saviour of Italy and – let us hope – Europe". Later, after a private audience with Mussolini, he added, "Unless my ears deceive me, the voice of Rome is the voice of Il Duce. I told him that I felt like a fascist myself... In spite of being extremely busy, Mussolini did me the great honour of conversing with me for three-quarters of an hour. We talked about music, art and politics".^[50] When the Nazis placed Stravinsky's works on the list of "Entartete Musik", he lodged a formal appeal to establish his Russian genealogy and declared, "I loathe all communism, Marxism, the execrable Soviet monster, and also all liberalism, democratism, atheism, etc.."^[51] Towards the end of his life, at Craft's behest, Stravinsky made a return visit to his native country and composed a cantata in Hebrew, travelling to Israel for its performance.^{[49][page needed]}

Stravinsky proved adept at playing the part of a 'man of the world', acquiring a keen instinct for business matters and appearing relaxed and comfortable in public. His successful career as a pianist and conductor took him to many of the world's major cities, including Paris, Venice, Berlin, London, Amsterdam and New York and he was known for his polite, courteous and helpful manner.

Stravinsky was reputed to have been a philanderer and was rumoured to have had affairs with high-profile partners such as Coco Chanel. He never referred to it himself, but Chanel spoke about their affair at length to her biographer Paul Morand in 1946 and their conversation was published thirty years later.^[52] The accuracy of Chanel's claims has been disputed by both Stravinsky's widow Vera and by his amanuensis Craft.^[53] The Chanel fashion house has stated that there was never proof that an affair between Coco and Igor Stravinsky ever existed.^[54] A fictionalization of the supposed affair formed the basis of the 2002 novel Coco and Igor and a 2009 film, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky. Despite these supposed liaisons, it is known that Stravinsky was a family man who devoted considerable amounts of his time and money to his children.^[55]

Faith[link]

Stravinsky was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church during most of his life, remarking at one time that, "Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament".^[56]

Although Stravinsky was not outspoken about his faith, he was a deeply religious man throughout some periods of his life. As a child, he was brought up by his parents in the Russian Orthodox Church. Baptized at birth, he later rebelled against the Church and abandoned it by the time he was fourteen or fifteen.^[57] Throughout the rise of his career he was estranged from Christianity and it was not until he reached his early forties that he experienced a spiritual crisis. After befriending a Russian priest named Father Nicolas after his move to Nice in 1924, he reconnected with his faith. He rejoined the Russian Orthodox Church and afterwards remained a committed Christian.^[58] Robert Craft noted that Stravinsky prayed daily, before and after composing, and also prayed when facing difficulty.^[59] Towards the end of his life, he was no longer able to attend Russian Orthodox services.

In in his late seventies, Stravinsky said:

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology (Anselm's proof in the Fides Quaerens Intellectum, for instance) it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music. I do not believe in bridges of reason or, indeed, in any form of extrapolation in religious matters. ... I can say, however, that for some years before my actual "conversion," a mood of acceptance had been cultivated in me by a reading of the Gospels and by other religious literature. ...^[60]

Music[link]

Stravinsky's career as a composer may be divided roughly into three stylistic periods:

Russian period (from about 1908 to 1919)[link]

Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov (seated together on the left) in 1908

Stravinsky's first period (which excludes some of his early minor works) began with Feu d'artifice (Fireworks) and included the three ballets he composed for Diaghilev. These three works have several characteristics in common: they are scored for an extremely large orchestra; they use Russian folk themes and motifs; and they were influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov's imaginative scoring and instrumentation. They also exhibit considerable stylistic development, from The Firebird, which emphasizes certain tendencies in Rimsky-Korsakov and features pandiatonicism in a conspicuous way in the third movement, to the use of polytonality in Petrushka and the intentionally brutal polyrhythms and dissonances of The Rite of Spring.

The first of his ballets, The Firebird, is noted for its imaginative orchestration. This is evident from the outset, as heard in the introduction, which exploits the double bass's low register. Petrushka, the first of Stravinsky's ballets to draw on folk mythology, is also distinctively scored. In The Rite of Spring, the composer attempts to depict the brutality of pagan Russia in his music, the inspiration of the violent motifs that recur throughout the work.

If Stravinsky's stated intention was "to send them all to hell",^[61] then he may have rated the 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring as a success: it is a famous classical music riot and Stravinsky referred to it on several occasions in his autobiography as a "scandale".^[62] There were reports of fistfights among the audience and the need for a police presence during the second act. The real extent of the tumult is open to debate and the reports may be apocryphal.^[63]

Other pieces from the Russian period include: Le Rossignol (The Nightingale); Renard (1916); Histoire du soldat (1918); and Les noces (The Wedding) (1923).

Neoclassical period (from about 1920 to 1954)[link]

The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style extends from the opera Mavra (1921–22), which is regarded as the start of his neo-classical period, until 1952, when he turned to serialism.^[3] Pulcinella (1920) and the Octet for wind instruments (1923) are the first of his compositions to feature his re-examination of the classical music of Mozart, J. S. Bach and their contemporaries.^{[citation needed]} Works such as Oedipus Rex (1927), Apollon musagète (1928) and the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto (1937–38) continued his re-thinking of eighteenth-century musical styles.

Other works from this period include the three symphonies: the Symphonie des Psaumes (Symphony of Psalms, 1930), Symphony in C (1940) and the Symphony in Three Movements (1945). Apollon, Persephone (1933) and Orpheus (1947) exemplify not only Stravinsky's return to the music of the Classical period, but also his exploration of themes from the ancient Classical world such as Greek mythology.

In 1951 he completed his last neo-classical work, the opera The Rake's Progress, to a libretto by W. H. Auden that was based on the etchings of William Hogarth. It premiered in Venice that year and was produced around Europe the following year, before being staged in the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1953.^[64] It was staged by the Santa Fe Opera in a 1962 Stravinsky Festival, in honour of the composer's 80th birthday.^[65] The music is direct but quirky and borrows from classic tonal harmony, but also interjects surprising dissonances. It features Stravinsky's trademark off-rhythms and harks back to the operas and themes of Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart. It was revived by the Metropolitan Opera in 1997.

Serial period (from 1954 to 1968)[link]

In the 1950s, Stravinsky began using serial compositional techniques such as dodecaphony, the twelve-tone technique originally devised by Arnold Schoenberg.^[66]

He first experimented with non-twelve-tone serial techniques in small-scale vocal and chamber works such as the Cantata (1952), the Septet (1953) and Three Songs from Shakespeare (1953). The first of his compositions to be fully based on such techniques was In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954). Agon (1954–57) was the first of his works to include a twelve-tone series and Canticum Sacrum (1955) was the first piece to contain a movement entirely based on a tone row.^[67] Stravinsky later expanded his use of dodecaphony in works such as Threni (1958), A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer (1961) and The Flood (1962), which are based on biblical texts.

Agon is choreographed for twelve ballet dancers. It forms an important transition between Stravinsky's neo-classical period and his serial style. Parts of Agon are reminiscent of the 'white-note' tonality of his neo-classic period, while others (for example Bransle Gay) display his re-interpretation of serial methods.

Innovation and influence[link]

Stravinsky is known as "one of music's truly epochal innovators".^[68] The most important aspect of Stravinsky's work, aside from his technical innovations (including in rhythm and harmony), is the 'changing face' of his compositional style while always 'retaining a distinctive, essential identity'.^[68] He himself was inspired by different cultures, languages and literatures. As a consequence, his influence on composers both during his lifetime and after his death was, and remains, considerable.

Stravinsky's use of motivic development (the use of musical figures that are repeated in different guises throughout a composition or section of a composition) included additive motivic development. This is where notes are subtracted or added to a motif without regard to the consequent changes in metre. A similar technique can be found as early as the sixteenth century, for example in the music of Cipriano de Rore, Orlandus Lassus, Carlo Gesualdo and Giovanni de Macque, music with which Stravinsky exhibited considerable familiarity.^[69]

The Rite of Spring is notable for its relentless use of ostinati, for example in the eighth note ostinato on strings accented by eight horns in the section Augurs of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls). The work also contains passages where several ostinati clash against one another.

Stravinsky was noted for his distinctive use of rhythm, especially in The Rite of Spring.^[70] According to the composer Philip Glass, "the idea of pushing the rhythms across the bar lines [...] led the way [...]. The rhythmic structure of music became much more fluid and in a certain way spontaneous".^[71] Glass mentions Stravinsky's "primitive, offbeat rhythmic drive".^[72] According to Andrew J. Browne, "Stravinsky is perhaps the only composer who has raised rhythm in itself to the dignity of art".^[73] Stravinsky's rhythm and vitality greatly influenced the composer Aaron Copland.^[74]

Stravinsky's first neo-classical works were the ballet Pulcinella of 1920 and the stripped-down and delicately scored Octet for Wind Instruments (1923). He may have been preceded in his use of neoclassical devices by composers such as Prokofiev and Erik Satie. By the late 1920s and 1930s, the use by composers of neoclassicism had become widespread.^{[citation needed]}

Stravinsky composed pieces that elaborated on individual works by earlier composers, a tradition that goes back at least to the fifteenth century quodlibet and parody mass. An early example is his Pulcinella of 1920, where he used music then attributed to Giovanni Pergolesi. His source material was at times quoted directly and at other times reinvented. He developed this technique further in the ballet The Fairy's Kiss (1928), which was based on music by Tchaikovsky. Later examples of comparable musical transformations include Stravinsky's use of Schubert's Marche Militaire No. 1 in his Circus Polka (1942) and "Happy Birthday to You" in Greeting Prelude (1955).

In The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky stripped folk themes to their most basic melodic outlines, often contorting them beyond recognition using added notes, inversion and diminution.^{[citation needed]}

Use of the orchestra[link]

As with many late romantic composers, Stravinsky often called for huge orchestral forces, especially in his early ballets. The Firebird proved him to be the equal of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and lit the "fuse under the instrumental make-up of the 19th century orchestra". In The Firebird he took the orchestra apart and analysed it.^[75] Aaron Copland characterized The Rite of Spring as the foremost orchestral achievement of the 20th century.^[76]

Stravinsky wrote for unique combinations of instruments in smaller ensembles, chosen for their precise tone colours. For example, Histoire du soldat is scored for clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, violin, double bass and percussion, a strikingly unusual combination for 1918.

Stravinsky occasionally exploits the extreme ranges of instruments, most famously at the opening of The Rite of Spring, where he uses the extreme upper reaches of the bassoon to simulate the symbolic 'awakening' of a spring morning.

Reception[link]

Stravinsky is acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.^[77][78][79] He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the century.^[72] He became a naturalized French citizen in 1934 and a naturalized United States citizen in 1945. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works.

In 1923, Erik Satie wrote an article about Igor Stravinsky in Vanity Fair.^[80] Satie had met Stravinsky for the first time in 1910. His attitude towards the Russian composer is marked by deference, as can also be seen from the letters he wrote to him in 1922, in preparation for the Vanity Fair article. With a touch of irony, he concluded in one of these letters, "I admire you: are you not the Great Stravinsky? I am but little Erik Satie".^{[citation needed]} In the published article, Satie argued that measuring the 'greatness' of an artist by comparing him to other artists, as if speaking about some 'truth', is illusory and that every piece of music should be judged on its own merits and not by comparing it to the standards of other composers. That was exactly what Jean Cocteau did when he commented deprecatingly on Stravinsky in his 1918 book Le Coq et l'Arlequin.^[81]

According to The Musical Times in 1923:

All the signs indicate a strong reaction against the nightmare of noise and eccentricity that was one of the legacies of the war.... What has become of the works that made up the program of the Stravinsky concert which created such a stir a few years ago? Practically the whole lot are already on the shelf, and they will remain there until a few jaded neurotics once more feel a desire to eat ashes and fill their belly with the east wind.^[82]

In 1935, the American composer Marc Blitzstein compared Stravinsky to Jacopo Peri and C.P.E. Bach, conceding that, "there is no denying the greatness of Stravinsky. It is just that he is not great enough".^[83] Blitzstein's Marxist position was that Stravinsky's wish to "divorce music from other streams of life", which is "symptomatic of an escape from reality", resulted in a "loss of stamina", naming specifically Apollo, the Capriccio, and Le Baiser de la fée.^[84]

The composer Constant Lambert described pieces such as Histoire du soldat as containing "essentially cold-blooded abstraction".^[85] Lambert continued, "melodic fragments in Histoire du Soldat are completely meaningless themselves. They are merely successions of notes that can conveniently be divided into groups of three, five, and seven and set against other mathematical groups" and he described the cadenza for solo drums as "musical purity...achieved by a species of musical castration". He compared Stravinsky's choice of "the drabbest and least significant phrases" to Gertrude Stein's: "Everyday they were gay there, they were regularly gay there everyday" ("Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene", 1922), "whose effect would be equally appreciated by someone with no knowledge of English whatsoever".^[86]

In his 1949 book Philosophy of Modern Music, Theodor W. Adorno described Stravinsky as an acrobat and spoke of hebephrenic and psychotic traits in several of Stravinsky's works. Contrary to a common misconception, Adorno didn't think that the hebephrenic and psychotic imitations that the music was supposed to contain were its main fault, as he pointed out in a postscriptum that he added later to his book. Adorno's criticism of Stravinsky is more concerned with the 'transition to positivity' that he found in the his neoclassical works.^[87] Part of the composer's error, in Adorno's view, was his neo-classicism,^[88] but of greater importantance was his music's "pseudomorphism of painting", playing off le temps espace (time-space) rather than le temps durée (time-duration) of Henri Bergson.^[89] According to Adorno, "one trick characterizes all of Stravinsky's formal endeavors: the effort of his music to portray time as in a circus tableau and to present time complexes as though they were spatial. This trick, however, soon exhausts itself".^[90] Adorno maintained that the "rhythmic procedures closely resemble the schema of catatonic conditions. In certain schizophrenics, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego".^[91]

Stravinsky's reputation in Russia and the USSR rose and fell. Performances of his music were banned from around 1933 until 1962, the year Nikita Khrushchev invited him to the USSR for an official state visit. In 1972, an official proclamation by the Soviet Minister of Culture, Ekaterina Furtseva, ordered Soviet musicians to "study and admire" Stravinsky's music and she made hostility toward it a potential offence.^[92]

While Stravinsky's music has been criticized for its range of styles^{[according to whom?]}, scholars had "gradually begun to perceive unifying elements in Stravinsky's music" by the 1980s.^{[citation needed]} Earlier writers, such as Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Boris de Schloezer and Virgil Thomson, writing in Modern Music (a quarterly review published between 1925 and 1946), could find only a common " 'seriousness' of 'tone' or of 'purpose', 'the exact correlation between the goal and the means', or a dry 'ant-like neatness' ".^[93]

From the mid-1960s onwards Stravinsky's music influenced the work of musicians such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass^{[citation needed]}.

He was honoured in 1982 by the United States Postal Service with a 2¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Awards[link]

• 1959: Léonie Sonning Music Prize
• Grammy Awards
  • 1962: Best Classical Composition by Contemporary Composer (The Flood)^[94]
  • 1962: Best Classical Performance – Orchestra (The Firebird, Igor Stravinsky conducting Columbia Symphony Orchestra)^[94]
  • 1962: Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist (with orchestra) (Violin Concerto in D, Isaac Stern; Igor Stravinsky conducting Columbia Symphony Orchestra)^[94]
  • 1987: Lifetime Achievement (posthumous)

Recordings and publications[link]

	3 Pieces for Clarinet Alone
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Igor Stravinsky found recordings a practical and useful tool in preserving his thoughts on the interpretation of his music. As a conductor of his own music, he recorded primarily for Columbia Records, beginning in 1928 with a performance of the original suite from The Firebird and concluding in 1967 with the 1945 suite from the same ballet.^[95] In the late 1940s he made several recordings for RCA Victor at the Republic Studios in Los Angeles. Although most of his recordings were made with studio musicians, he also worked with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the CBC Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bavarian Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra.

During his lifetime, Stravinsky appeared on several telecasts, including the 1962 world premiere of The Flood on CBS television. Although he made an appearance, the actual performance was conducted by Robert Craft.^[96] Numerous films and videos of the composer have been preserved.

Stravinsky published a number of books throughout his career, almost always with the aid of a (sometimes uncredited) collaborator. In his 1936 autobiography, Chronicles of My Life, which was written with the help of Walter Nouvel, Stravinsky included his well-known statement that "music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all".^[97] With Alexis Roland-Manuel and Pierre Souvtchinsky, he wrote his 1939–40 Harvard University Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, which were delivered in French and first collected under the title Poétique musicale in 1942 and then translated in 1947 as Poetics of Music.^[98] In 1959, several interviews between the composer and Robert Craft were published as Conversations with Igor Stravinsky,^[99] which was followed by a further five volumes over the following decade.

References[link]