The Stravinsky Legacy

It has become increasingly apparent in recent decades that Stravinsky's music has had far-reaching influence on the development of music in our century. Stravinsky's modernist innovations - evident in such features as his music's discontinuity, its stasis, its ritualized anti-narrative, its novel rhythmic and formal structures, its articulation of new kinds of musical time, and its reinterpretation of music and materials from the past - have helped shape much of the music of our time. This book represents a first substantial attempt to evaluate Stravinsky's technical and aesthetic legacy. In Part I ('The Stravinsky Legacy'), Jonathan Cross explores the breadth of Stravinsky's impact on the music of composers as diverse as Adams, Andriessen, Birtwistle, Boulez, Carter, Messiaen, Reich, Stockhausen, Tippett, Varése and Xenakis. In Part II ('Stravinsky Reheard') he returns to Stravinsky's neoclassical music to examine how recent developments in composition and musicology affect our understanding of and analytical approaches to Stravinsky.