Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons

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Igor Stravinsky

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970; originally published 1942, English and French

Nonfiction, General

ISBN: 9780674678552

From the Publisher. Igor Stravinksky's general ideas about music and some accounts of his own experience as a composer, including his notes about the essential features of music, the process of musical composition, inspiration, musical types, and musical execution. Throughout the volume are to he found trenchant comments on such subjects as Wagnerism, the operas of Verdi, musical taste, musical snobbery, the influence of political ideas on Russian music under the Soviets, musical improvisation as opposed to musical construction, the nature of melody, and the function of the critic of music. During the academic year 1939-40, Stravinsky delivered the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University, in French. An English translation of the six lectures appeared in 1947, and this bilingual edition enables the reader to study both the language in which Stravinsky conceived his "lessons" and the English translation.

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Chris Bangle

On Chris Bangle’s Book List

Takes a bit of plowing through, but this is another of my well written-over “bibles” on car design. The maestro weaves a great essay on composition, originality, and the fundamental construction of the aesthetic pleasure of music, of course, but it works for cars too.

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