Stravinsky-happening

Who is the most important composer of the 20th Century? - A question one could ruminate for hours. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is certainly among those most influential composers of recent music history. His music is generally known, recognized and has been celebrated since the first hour. In comparison to colleagues as Schönberg, Webern, Boulez and Cage whose handling of the usage was more 'hermetic', no other composer in the 20th Century was capable of similar weightless and purity of expression. His individuality, versatility, and the continuous metamorphosis of his music - he easily matches up to Picasso in this respect - resulted in great controversies and scandals. Stravinsky's work is best placed outside of the general body of music history. His allegiance to the traditions, the style, and period of his predecessors is equally evident in his original vocabulary and in the theory, he developed to incorporate the past in his compositions. The 'Fire-bird', 'Le sacre du printemps' and 'Renard' are part of his Russian past, in which Orientalism preceded the Middle Ages and prehistory. 'Marva' belongs to the story of the Russian bourgeoisie, 'Pulcinella' is again a study in style of Pergolesi and his contemporaries. In 'Oedipus Rex', he digs in the past of Händel's Oratorium and Bach's Passions. These surprising transformations continue under the influence of jazz, the opera buffa, and neoclassicism and culminated in generalized serialism, towards the end of his life. In this way, we can relate to the evolution of Stravinsky's work step by step, almost gauging it experimentally with the past. Stravinsky's source is tradition and his craving for freedom in his treatment of form originates in the ritual and the stylistic and archetypal contrasts. He is in search of an alternative expression for the romantic idiom of art with an underlying meaning. In the three periods, which Stravinsky evolved through as a composer - the rhythmic, the neoclassical, and the serial -, he broke the ground for coming generation, up to the present day.