Музыкальная поэтика

The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures

by Igor Stravinsky

Книга представляет собой цикл лекций по музыкальной поэтике, прочитанных Игорем Стравинским в Гарвардском университете в 1939-1940 гг.

Понятным даже неподготовленному читателю, живым и образным языком этот гениальный композитор рассказывает о тех фундаментальных элементах, которые формируют музыкальное творчество.

Что же такое музыка? Откуда берется вдохновение и какие материалы использует творец в своей работе? Как нужно исполнять музыку? И какова судьба русского музыкального искусства?..

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art, Philosophy, Essays, Russia, Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music.

He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the century. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1946. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works.

He also published a number of books throughout his career, almost always with the aid of a collaborator, sometimes uncredited. In his 1936 autobiography, Chronicles of My Life, written with the help of Walter Nouvel, Stravinsky included his infamous statement that "music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all."

Reviews

[Özgür Atmaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stravinsky eserlerini ne zaman dinlesem, zihnimde ifade edemediğim keskin tınılar, cümleler oluşur.
Kitabı Stravinsky hitleriyle okuduktan sonra Stravinsky ve eserleriyle alâkalı tüm sorularım cevaplandı diyebilirim.
Aslında tüm bestecileri biraz kendi kaleminden okuyabilseydik de tüm armonizasyonu çözmek işi bize kalmasaydı :)
Kitap, Stravinsky'in Harward'da yaptığı 6 derslik konuşmalarından oluşuyor.
En sevdiğim bölümler " Müziğin Tipolojisi", "Müzik Fenomeni", "Müziğin İcrasıyla" alâkalı yapmış olduğu bölümlerdi.
Sanırım satır aralarında, müziğini oluştururken yaptığı felsefi sorgulamaları, girift düşünce yapısını, okuduklarını, duyduklarını, tüm çevre ilişkilerini ve içsel sürecini anlatmasını çok sevdim.

Stravinsky kitabın başında anlatımlara başlamadan önce, eserlerini hangi dönemlerde ve hangi siyasi atmosferlerde yarattığını açıklıyor.

Stravinsky'nin çok keskin bir çizgisi var. Bunu dilinden çok rahat çıkartabiliyorsunuz. Kitapta bana çağrışımlar da yaptıran, altını çizdiğim, gerek katıldığım gerekse üzerine halâ düşündüğüm kısımları da buraya ekleyeyim.


" Sanat tarihinde, devrimci diye nitelenebilecek bir olguya rastlamak imkânsızdır; Sanat, özü gereği yapıcıdır."

"Devrim geçici kaostur. Sanatta kaos olmaz"

"Kuşun şakıması sanat değildir, onu biçimlendirecek modülasyona sokmak sanattır."

" Birinin müziğiyle etkilemesi için, psikolojik donanımı, entellektüel birikimi olması lazım"

"Vicdanımın ve inancımın meyvesi olan yarattığım eserlere biraz olsun önem veriyorsanız, lütfen onları doğuran ve onlarla birlikte gelişen spekülatif kavramlara da değer verin."

" Resim mekânsal bir sanat olduğu gibi, Müzikte zamansal bir sanattır."
" Çeşitlilik ancak benzerliğe ulaşmanın bir aracı olarak geçerlidir."

"Tamamlanmış eser başkalarına iletilmek üzere dışarı yayılır ve sonunda kaynağına geri akar. O zaman devir tamamlanır. Müzik böylece kendini diğer insanla ve Yüce Varlıkla kurulan komünyonun bir biçimi olarak ortaya koyar."

[B. Han Varli · Rating 2 out of 5]

''her yaratım, kökeninde, keşfin önceden tadına varılmasının ortaya çıkardığı bir tür iştahı varsayar. yaratma edimindeki bu önceden alınan tat, ele geçirilmiş olmasına rağmen henüz anlaşılmayan, bilinmeyen bir varlığın sezgisel kavranışına eşlik eder. ancak sürekli tetikte olan bir tekniğin uygulanmasıyla kesin şeklini alabilecek bir varlıktır bu.''

bu yazıyı okuyan sevgili sözlük yazarları ve goodreads arkadaşlarım, bana müzik ile ilişkili aklınıza gelen tüm kitapları yollamanızı istiyorum. lütfen :')

altı derste müziğin incelendiği bu kitap keyif vermiş olsa da, büyük resimde beni biraz aştı sanırım.

tanışma, müzik fenomeni, müziğin bestelenmesi, müziğin tipolojisi, rus müziğinin avatarları ve müziğin icrası gibi bölümlerin bir ya da birden fazlasında boğulduğum, imdat çığlıkları attığım oldu.

fransızca metinden ingilizceye, ingilizce metinden türkçeye çevrildiği için midir bilinmez, yazar konservatuvarda olmadığımızı, müzikal pedagojiyle sıkmayacağını söylemesine rağmen, yer yer terimlerden önümü göremediğim oldu.

elbette faydalı bir okumaydı ama. birçok not aldım, enstrüman çalan arkadaşlarımla kitaptaki görüşleri tartıştığım oldu; okuduğum için pişman değilim.

ilgi duyduğum bir alana, çaldığım enstrümana derinlik kattığımı hissettiğim oldu. daha ne olsun?

belki biraz daha hafif bir şeyler ile başlamam gerekiyordu, bilemedim; belki de böyle böyle açılıyor müzik ufku.

[Grace Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Art is, by nature, constructive"
“For it is not art that rains down upon us in the song
of a bird; but the simplest modulation correctly executed
is already art, without any possible doubt.”

[Mesoscope · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Pierre Boulez who are also gifted communicators and insightful students of music history and theory. Then there are composers like Igor Stravinsky, whose genius of expression lies purely in non-discursive domains.

This series of lecture transcripts gives the impression of an animated but disorganized speaker extemporaneously speaking on vague topic areas without preparation. His basic unit of thought seems to be about the size of a sentence, and Stravinsky never gives a sense of developing ideas. Occasionally his observations have anecdotal value, and there are buried gems, but there is much chaff and little wheat in this slender book.

The best thing I got out of reading it is a mild sense of personal connection to one of the great musical minds of the twentieth century, but he gives little insight into the nature of his genius or his method.

[Emma Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first got into architecture school they gave us a list of recommended readings for the summer before our first year. Of those, this was my favorite, and the only one that wasn't exactly about architecture. It's been a while since I've read cover to cover, but I often scan if for some of the quotes I underlined (one of the few books I own I've actually done that to!)

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his preface to this collection of lectures Darius Milhaud says, "Poetics of music is like a searchlight turned by Stravinsky on his own work on one hand, and on music in general on the other." This comment provides an excellent introduction to this short book. Given as part of the Charles Eliot Norton lectures, these compact essays provide an insight into the mind of one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.
Half the book is concerned with music in general,focusing on the phenomenon of music, its composition, the various types of music and aspects of musical style. His argument regarding critics who ignore his own music is interesting as he looks back at earlier composers like Bach and Beethoven who suffered from similar disregard before being crowned as great masters.
Further commentary includes a more specific look at Russian music in particular and a discussion of the interpretation of music. These lectures by a great Russian master whose own style evolved significantly over his lifetime make great reading for all who love music.

[Robert Reinhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

These Norton Lectures were delivered as WWII was beginning and even without alluding to that stand for civilization and its traditions while others make it deteriorate. Not for the novice exactly, which is the category I fit in, I still enjoyed the cadence of his words and thoughts.

[Edanur Kuntman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A glimpse into the mind of a great creator. I feel like there is inspiration for all types of creative minds in his lectures. It was a wonderful read for the most part, the last three lectures require a little bit more than basic knowledge of music though.

[Dave Lawrence · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great composer and musician. Bad lecturer/writer and thinker.

Thoughts disjunct. Sentences rambling. Ideas ill-defined and nonsensical.

It’s like he started believing all the hype around himself and his music and gave up his improvement.

I’ve browsed a couple other books of Stravinsky’s lectures, letters, and interviews and it appears that the older he got, the lower the quality of his thinking.

I don’t understand the other reviews, but maybe this would help explain the 4-5 star ones:
1. He might have gotten a good review because after all, he is Stravinsky.
2. Other reviewers might be swayed by the high sounding language in this book.
Or
3. Maybe I just didn’t get it.

If your are a composer like me or even an artist, don’t think that this book will give you any insights about the creative process.

Probably better to study his works instead.

[Steve]

Stravinsky represents another high point of creativity for me. After listening to his "Rite of Spring", you can be sure he was channeling something from a different plane. Pure genius. You should also give his violin concerto and ballet "Agon" a listen. One of those rare, protean spirits that comes along only once or twice a century.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

the man has strong opinions, and does speak poetically about music, and in a way that could apply to more than just the subject at hand. an interesting meditation on the process of art-making in general.

[Quiver · Rating 3 out of 5]

'I am not offering you a mass of mere opinions, but rather [...] I am submitting to you a body of findings which, though made by me, are non the less just as valid for others as for myself.' (7)

Stravinsky's defence of personal experiences not as 'mere opinions' but as 'findings' also 'valid for others'. I did not take it particularly seriously, for either no defence is needed, or this defence is inadequate.

Six lessons. The first, 'Getting Acquainted', is of interest for getting a sense of the man. The fourth and fifth, 'Musical Typology' and 'Avatars of Russian Music', are his take on the politics of music. The second, third, and fourth pertain to Music: they are on the 'Phenomenon' itself, on the 'Composition' and on the 'Performance'. Those chapters are, accordingly, the most interesting to a broader audience. They are also the ones I shall be returning to.

'... one might conceive the process of performance as the creation of new values that call for the solution of problems similar to those which arise in the realm of choreography. In both cases we give special attention to the control gestures. The dancer is an orator who speaks a mute language. The instrumentalist is an orator who speaks an unarticulated language. Upon one, just as upon the other, music imposes a strict bearing. For music does not move in the abstract. Its translation into plastic terms requires exactitude and beauty: the exhibitionist know this only too well.' (128)

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this look into the composer himself, via his strong views on what music is and isn’t, what place criticism and audience opinions has in determining the value of a work, his insistence that freedom comes within limitations, his insightful remarks about what a culture is, and his rather amusing but interesting takes on other composers. Sometimes it wasn’t entirely clear what he was trying say, and many things could have used more elaboration than this short book gives them. Some things seemed downright contradictory, like his view that music should only try to be music and never try to be something else (for instance, trying to tell a story like tone poems), while he has no problem with Opera or Ballet. The line here to me isn’t clear, but despite these things I thought this was a great little book, and I’ll definitely be returning to it in the future.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wildly poetic, in a sense that is still understandable. However I did have to Google certain words to know for sure I understood the meaning of the sentence.
Read in one day by the pool at the hotel on Mallorca.

[Robert Humber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the long stretches he spent just shitting on Wagner.

Wagner's been real quiet since this book dropped.

[T S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Some good insights

[Mehrdad · Rating 3 out of 5]

این کتاب مجموعه سخنرانی های ایگور استراوینسکی در مقام استادی هنر و ادبیات در مورد poetics of music یا همون ساخت موسیقی ه.
با اینکه توی مقدمه ش استراوینسکی میگه تمام صحبت هاش نتیجه تحقیق و بدون جانبداریه، در واقع تمامی حرفاش نظرهای شخصیش و جهت دار بود. البته این ارزش کتابو اصلا کم نمیکنه ولی خب به هرحال اونی که خود نویسنده ادعا میکرد هم نبود و لازمه نظرات مخالف رو هم شنید و روشون تحقیق کرد.
متاسفانه کتاب رو موقعی خوندم که دسترسی به اینترنت نداشتم و نمیشد خیلی چیزاشو دقیق تر بررسی کنم خودم. بعدا حتما بهش برمیگردم.
در کل استراوینسکی برای نقش فعال موسیقیدان توی ساخت آهنگ تاکید زیادی داره و خلاقیت و نوآوری رو به تنهایی کافی نمیدونه. از طرف دیگه معتقده آزادی بی حد و حصر بی معنا و حتی مخربه و باید موسیقی توی چارچوب مشخصی ساخته بشه وگرنه بی ارزش خواهد بود نتیجه ش.
در مورد نقش نوازنده هم گفته میشه که باید نوازنده هم اجراگر باشه و هم مفسر قطعه. باید دقیقا آشنا باشه با نحوه درست اجرای قطعه و حال و هوای دوره ای که آهنگ ساخته شده و در نهایت خود قطعه رو هم بدون نقص اجرا کنه(!)
فکر می‌کنم برای اهالی موسیقی کتاب جالبی باشه!:)

[Keith Kenniff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent (albeit short) lecture from an always articulate Stravinsky at Harvard. Stravinsky's compositional approach changed a lot over the years, and it's intriguing to hear about his approach to composition, and his thoughts on the motivation behind his constant exploration and exploration of music, as well as where music had been and where it was going. He was one of the few composers (especially of his time) that simultaneously having a reverence for music of the past, was firmly committed to pushing music forward. It is interesting to compare his thoughts to those of his contemporaries (specifically Shoenberg) and the later generation of experimental musicians in the 50's, as well as the reemergence in the 60s/70s of more secular-influenced composers like Arvo Part/Gorecki/John Tavener.

[Evie · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant - found his ideas on composition most enlightening. Just re-read again, this was a book dug out of the "shool days" chest.

-s

[Jordan Kinsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential in the understanding of Stravinsky the man. Like the Bible, it should be taken seriously but not literally.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Igor Stravinsky's Norton lectures (at Harvard) from 1939-40 clarified the classical system in composition, conducting, performing and typology at just the moment the European conflict was about to break it all down and Stravinsky himself about to begin the long unraveling of his own ideas in order to accomodate the information coming from Schoenberg, Boulez and the Americans Cage and Cunningham. Stravinsky's last "Lesson" on the performance of music is a strong apology for music as a fine art, entrusted to an elite trained to embody composition as the "will to expression." This, Stravinsky's kind of music (the composer of Le Sacre du Printemps is quite funny in his antipathy to the word "modern") running not parallel to "ontological time" but ahead of it, "dislocates the centers of attraction and gravity and sets itself up in the unstable; and this fact makes it particularly adaptable to the translation of the composer's emotive impulses." Just so, Balanchine felt Stravinsky "an architect of time," his music "a dancer's floor. It's the reason we move. Without the music we don't want to move." Cunningway, for one, unswayed by that subjection of ontology to architecture, thought the floor was the floor -- to hell with the trope. In a performance, there was a quite literal time dance shared with music and that was all the two need share; but for Stravinsky, coming out of a revolutionary period in which program music had been co-opted through Soviet social realism, too much was at stake to repudiate as well the theatrical space of the dance in which the will to express was the ontological basis for a "potential music."

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this series of lectures, Stravinsky goes through ideas about the artistic process, some ideas about classical music and the traditions of Russian music, and also how music is to be performed. While I was at first surprised about Stravinsky’s conservative views about the construction of music, it made more sense thinking about his music itself. In particular, I liked how he explored the idea of creativity, the idea of having a purpose when moving forward, even though one does not have a particular plan in mind. He also take some nice pot shots at Beethoven and John cage as well as other indeterminists to bring A snarky tone along with his serious endeavors.

[Mario · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tough one to review. You definitely get a sense of the composer himself through his lectures, and get a very good idea of how he thinks, but he doesn't really succeed in translating that into an argument. He opines throughout, and his thoughts are interesting, but he doesn't go deep enough to justify them to the audience. This might have worked better as an interview with someone who was willing to challenge his pronouncements. This feels like a one-sided debate, and I just wasn't always on his side. It is worth reading, but it is missing something.

[Bjorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We have a duty to music, and that is to invent it."

I love to listen to (or in this case read) creative people trying to get at the root of what creativity actually is. Not everything in Stravinsky's lectures is something I agree with - his contempt for using music for anything beyond itself feels both admirable and a little naive today - but he's never less than interesting, and frequently very funny. I'd probably have loved it unreservedly if I knew more about classical music.

[c · Rating 3 out of 5]

as pompous as oscar wilde's witticisms, as convoluted as polisci readings at times — stravinsky makes some great points but often without enough explanation/examples for me to fully understand them. could be more coherence at times which maybe a reordering of lessons could help (thought his pov on the evolution of russian music would have benefited from popping up sooner than later) lol boy does he not like wagner

[Shawn Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are Stravinsky's Eliot Norton Poetry lectures at Harvard from the 1930s. For someone so modern, he has a deep understanding of the music of the past, particularly Brahms and the Romantics. Hates Wagner. Fiercely opinionated, but everything sounds reasonable and is presented with brevity and clarity. The perspective of an artist on his field.

[Lianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will have to try to read this again in a few years. I feel like my historical knowledge is not developed enough to really understand everything that is being discussed in this book. A few gems of quotes here and there but nothing totally memorable.

[Pipebre · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must if you love to "think music"

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent resource for learning about the creative process in music composition and even all other art forms. Appetite comes first then the idea.

NOTE: I read this for HUMA 6300