Stravinsky, Dali and the revolution of imagination

Jon Rappoport's Blog ^ | February 7, 2015 | Jon Rappoport

[Zeneta]

Link to the Original score ?

[sparklite2]

I’m listening to Rite right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWotpIy0uTg
I guess you had to be there.

[Zeneta]

I’m listening to this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76eZfI5pOM

[Zeneta]

I love classical music, but sometimes I just want to cut to the chase.

It doesn't hurt that she's drop dead adorable.

Lucia Micarelli - Kashmir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knMrQGHRJ7s

[real saxophonist]

I’m still not sure about you, but bump.

[johniegrad]

I think what happens with music (or art) like this is that adults approach it within the context of their previous musical experiences. As a result, when something shockingly new comes onto the scene, there is a knee jerk response to evaluate it against what one has previously listened to and accepted as "normal".

Children have no such context.

Years ago, I took my daughter, who was 7 at the time, to the symphony for the performance of The Firebird. I was quite familiar with the piece and had "learned" to enjoy it from several listenings. In my opinion, it was "different" from the usual fare but I had come to like it. I learned to like it.

I thought my daughter, who had not previously listened to it, might not enjoy it. However, she found it to be great fun. I think it was because she had no preconceived notions of whar music "should" sound like.

I learned a lot from her that evening.

[jocon307]

Perhaps you and some others here might find this interesting:

the ecstatic music festival in NYC:

http://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/series/ecstatic-music-festival/

[Zeneta]

As I drove my 6-9 year old daughter to school every morning I subjected her to my musical tastes.

The Cranberries, was one of her favorites.

Zombie

Ode to My Family

The B-52’s.

Pretty much everything.

Her love of this and so much more music I exposed her to thoroughly pissed off her mother to both our delight.

And when she picks up her guitar and plays the first song that she taught herself to play for her mother, is “Mother”, by Pink Floyd, it’s off the hook on so many levels.

“look mommy at what I learned”

[MinuteGal]

I urge those who are able to visit the Dali Museum in St. Pete, Florida, to do so.

Years ago, with misgivings and low expectations, I visited the place. It's not that big, and, lo and behold, I was there for almost four hours....completely enthralled.

I took the edifying tour around the galleries with the group guide....then went back alone for further and more leisurely study of the artiste's works.

I was almost mesmerized. Dali was a conventional artist as well as a surrealist. His paintings as a child show early genius. As an adult he did little painted cameos and huge two-story epic hangings. He concocted fun "fool the eye" works. His fertile brain created the weird, the wonder-ful, the conventional, the insane, the mesmerizing, the bad, the beautiful and the sublime.

Ostensibly, he was as nutty as a fruitcake, but I don't buy it. He was a genius in his various genres, canny with money and personal PR, maybe close to the edge of madness in some peoples' eyes....but his work is never dull, dated, trite or easily categorized.

If you ever get to St. Pete, by all means, hit the Dali Museum. I would not steer you wrong...and, unless you don't appreciate art at all, you will thank me for the referral and you'll find it an afternoon extremely well spent. Bring the kids, too, for a real cultural learning experience.

I intend to return there to drink it all in again as soon as possible...and to again enjoy searching for the devil and the sublime in all the details of Dali's canvases.

Leni

[VanDeKoik]

For the life of me I will never understand how any idiot could have reacted like that to a piece of symphonic music.

No wonder Europe killed itself off in the 20th century, they became loony toons.

[9thLife]

...many words...

Rite of Spring probably still sucks. And is there anything wrong with Norman Rockwell?

Imagination, like any other tool, is best when used in the service of a well-formed soul.

[flaglady47]

The Dali Museum in St. Pete is a feast for the eyes. Fascinating. It is the second largest collection of Dali paintings outside of Spain. Not to be missed. What a mind trip some of his paintings are. Like Picasso, Dali, when young, showed himself to be a painting prodigy, and his representative paintings from his youth show what skill he had very early in life, before he started tripping the light fantastic on canvas.

If you see early Picasso paintings when he was into realism and portraiture, you see the same genius in painting skills, before he too went outside the norm for his times and cubed his paintings up.

Bottom line, don’t miss the Dali Museum in St. Pete if you get the chance to go to it; you won’t regret it.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

If you haven’t seen it, Dali collaborated with Walt Disney to produce the short (6:31) movie ‘Destino’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GFkN4deuZU

[scottteng]

Great review Leni one day I will have to make the trek down there to see it

[onyx]

Thank you so much for the detailed description and the advice.
I’ll do that, dearest Leni, if I ever visit St Pete!

[PUGACHEV]

I think the closest you can get to the 1913 Diagalev/Nijinsky/Stravinsky production is the Mariinski Ballet version which tries to be as close as possible to the original. I saw it last week at the Kennedy Center and there was no riot. Although, the cost of the tickets would have justified one. IMHO, it was not so much the music that provoked the audience in 1913, but Nijinsky's choreography. The opening movement, which Stravinsky claimed he based on a Lithuanian folk melody, sounds a bit too much like Debussy's Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun from 1893, which the Parisians would certainly have been used to.. At least I think so.

BTW, the powerful scene near the end of Clint Eastwood's "The Unforgiven" where Money is leaving the town, is more threatening from the use of opening of Stravinsky's The Firebird" from 1910.

[Boowhoknew]

“I did not know that” Thanks for the dali from a source I didn’t expect.

[real saxophonist]

I messed around with a bassoon for a while, got pretty gòod on it. It's weird there are 32 keys for each thumb.

'Rite of Spring' was a challenge for bassoonisoids...

[mozarky2]

A correct reading of the mood of the audience at the premiere of Sacre du Printemps would reveal that they weren’t upset with the music itself, but the knock-kneed, arms-akimbo dance moves.