Stravinsky
STATION 4ZD the other Sunday morning played for us Stravinsky’s Firebird, and this prompted me to read something about the composer, with results which I had not anticipated. Stravinsky’s own words in his Autobiography, "I have a very distinct feeling that in the course of the last 15 years my written work has estranged me from the great mass of my _ listeners," may be quite true, but since the period mentioned does not include Firebird, Petrouchka, or The Rite of Spring, it presupposes that listeners find no difficulty in understanding what the composer meant when he wrote those works. To those dismayed listeners who still find the last of these works especially a trifle difficult to listen to, it is no solace to hear from the composer’s own lips that they (the listeners) are already old-fashioned, and that "I believe that there was seldom any real communica. tion of spirit between us." Let us hasten to bring the soaring spirit of Stravinsky down to earth by mentioning, also, that he does not rely on "inspiration," but forces himself to compose for a set time each day; it will make his work sound less abstruse if we compare this sensible habit with the similar methods employed by the novelist Trollope, and add that
Stravinsky regards inspiration merely as a driving force in human activity, but "in no wise peculiar to artists."
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 353, 29 March 1946, Page 13
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231Stravinsky New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 353, 29 March 1946, Page 13
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