Igor Stravinsky

(Paperback)

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Description

Igor Stravinsky was a celebratedcomposer in an age increasingly obsessed with celebrity. He was a truemodern; a man of his time: in Paris he dined with James Joyce, PabloPicasso and Marcel Proust; and by the end of his life was being fted byboth the White House and the Kremlin as a prime piece of Cold War capital.But his colourful life would mean little to us were it not for the brilliant andoriginal music he produced, music that reflected and shaped his owntimes, and which continues to sing today.

Reviews

"A fitting examination of the man Cross refers to as the twentieth century's most celebrated composer. Cross compares his subject to the famous nesting matryoshka dolls of Russia. What one first perceives as a whole is a series of wholes that only deepen the mystery once the doll owner has begun unwinding the layers. So, too, with Stravinsky. . . . Cross's eye and ear for detail and ability to add something quiet but significant to the larger conversation about his subject make Igor Stravinsky well worth reading."
--John Garratt "Spectrum Culture"
"Cross is a well-known Stravinsky scholar, having written The Stravinsky Legacy and edited The Cambridge Companion to Stravinsky. True to form, his contribution to the 'Critical Lives' series is deeply insightful, highly engaging, but not technical, and he gives the reader a multifaceted understanding of Stravinsky's life and music. Cross effectively interweaves and connects biographical details, pivotal life events, approachable musical analysis, and broad cultural trends. Particularly cogent is his use of complementary personal anecdotes and large-scale influences in Stravinsky's works. Musicians and non-musicians alike will enjoy this excellent contribution to studies of Stravinsky's life and times."
-- "Choice"
"In my view, Jonathan Cross's brief Stravinsky in the Reaktion series of Critical Lives could not be bettered. Indeed, it is a model of elegant lucid writing and clear organization, providing an overview of the composer's life and work with a useful light-handed aperu of current scholarship and enlivened by the author's own distinctive literary persona and critical perceptions. Much additional color, too, is provided by his evident visual sensibility--not, I'm afraid, a conspicuous feature of most musicological publications. . . . Cross also vividly emphasizes the importance of the wider cosmopolitan cultural context of interwar Paris with which Stravinsky totally identified himself in the genesis of his neoclassical works."-- "Musical Times"
"True to form for Critical Lives, Jonathan Cross packs a rich life into a lean yet bountiful biography in Igor Stravinsky."--John Garratt "PopMatters"

Author Bio

Jonathan Cross joined the Oxford Faculty of Music in 2003, where he is Professor of Musicology, and Student and Tutor in Music at Christ Church. He was previously Lecturer at the University of Sussex (1986-95) and Lecturer, later Reader, at the University of Bristol (1996-2003).