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194-608: Although principally describing a tendency in German painting, the term took a life of its own and came to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it. Rather than some goal of philosophical objectivity, it was meant to imply a turn towards practical engagement with the world—an all-business attitude, understood by Germans as intrinsically American. The movement essentially ended in 1933 with

388-653: A Free Socialist Republic was proclaimed at the Berlin Palace . The proclamation was issued by Karl Liebknecht , co-leader with Rosa Luxemburg of the communist Spartakusbund ( Spartacus League ), a group of a few hundred supporters of the Russian Revolution that had allied itself with the USPD in 1917. On the same day, in a move that was contrary to the constitution because only the Kaiser could appoint

582-551: A harmonic structure that Stravinsky called "leit-harmony", a portmanteau of leitmotif and harmony used by Rimsky-Korsakov in his opera The Golden Cockerel . The "leit-harmony" was used to juxtapose the protagonist, the Firebird , and the antagonist, Koschei the Deathless : the former was associated with whole-tone phrases and the latter with octatonic harmony. Stravinsky later wrote how he composed The Firebird in

776-634: A naturalized French citizen, protecting all his future works under copyright in France and the United States. His family subsequently moved to an apartment on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, where he began writing a two-volume autobiography with the help of Walter Nouvel , published in 1935 and 1936 as Chroniques de ma vie . After the short run of Perséphone , Stravinsky embarked on

970-500: A romantic style, and Max Beckmann's work by the time he left Germany in 1937 was, by Franz Roh 's definitions, expressionism. The influence of New Objectivity outside of Germany can be seen in the work of artists like Balthus , Salvador Dalí (in such early works as his Portrait of Luis Buñuel of 1924), Auguste Herbin , Maruja Mallo , Cagnaccio di San Pietro , Grant Wood , Adamson-Eric , and Juhan Muks . Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic , officially known as

1164-594: A " Working Committee of German Associations " was founded with representatives of many groups considered "fit for good society". In 1919 the Weimar National Assembly established a parliamentary committee to inquire into the events that had led to the "outbreak, prolongation and loss of the First World War". Its results were of questionable value due to a lack of cooperation from the civil service and military and to increasing interference from

1358-471: A "war guilt lie". In line with national conservative and bourgeois right-wing parties, they accused the governing parties of having contributed to Germany's humiliation by signing the treaty and of denying it the right to self-determination. The young republic was exposed from the beginning to attacks from both the extreme right and extreme left. The Left accused the Social Democrats of betraying

1552-607: A New Objectivist and an expressionist, depending on the composition, throughout the 1920s; for example, his wind quintet Kleine Kammermusik Op. 24 No. 2 (1922) was designed as Gebrauchsmusik ; one may compare his operas Sancta Susanna (part of an expressionist trilogy) and Neues vom Tage (a parody of modern life). His music typically harkens back to baroque models and makes use of traditional forms and stable polyphonic structures, together with modern dissonance and jazz -inflected rhythms. Ernst Toch and Kurt Weill also composed New Objectivist music during

1746-631: A chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, at Ebert's request, transferred his powers as chancellor to him. In view of the mass support for more radical reforms among the workers' councils, a coalition government called the Council of the People's Deputies ( Rat der Volksbeauftragten ) was established, consisting of three MSPD and three USPD members. Led by Ebert for the MSPD and Hugo Haase for the USPD, it governed Germany from November 1918 to January 1919. Although

1940-579: A coalition government; Hitler's far-right Nazi Party held two out of ten cabinet seats. Von Papen, as Vice-Chancellor and Hindenburg's confidant, was to serve as the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control; these intentions severely underestimated Hitler's political abilities. By the end of March 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 were used in the perceived state of emergency to effectively grant

2134-447: A collaborative method to play production, starting with his Man Equals Man project. This approach to theater-craft began to be known as "Brechtian" and the collective of writers and actors who he worked with are known as the "Brechtian collective". New Objectivity in music, as in the visual arts, rejected the sentimentality of late Romanticism and the emotional agitation of expressionism. Composer Paul Hindemith may be considered both

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2328-489: A contract with British publishing house Boosey & Hawkes , who agreed to publish all his future works. Additionally, he revised many of his older works and had Boosey & Hawkes publish the new editions to re-copyright his older works. Around the 1948 premiere of another Balanchine collaboration, the ballet Orpheus , the composer met the young conductor Robert Craft in New York; Craft had asked Stravinsky to explain

2522-662: A contract with the player piano company Pleyel to create piano roll arrangements of his music. He received a studio at their factory on the Rue Rochechouart, where he reorchestrated Les noces for a small ensemble including player piano. The composer transcribed many of his major works for the mechanical pianos, and the Pleyel premises remained his Paris base until 1933, even after the player piano had been largely supplanted by electrical gramophone recording. Stravinsky signed another contract in 1924, this time with

2716-578: A flurry of critical attacks, leading the writer H. G. Wells to publish an open letter in support of the work. During this period, Stravinsky expanded his involvement in conducting and piano performance. He conducted the premiere of his Octet in 1923 and served as the soloist for the premiere of his Piano Concerto in 1924. Following its debut, he embarked on a tour, performing the concerto in over 40 concerts. The Stravinsky family moved again in September 1924 to Nice , France. The composer's schedule

2910-509: A folk tune from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Snow Maiden , showing the former's continued reverence for his teacher. Stravinsky's third ballet, The Rite of Spring , caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature. He had begun to experiment with polytonality in The Firebird and Petrushka , but for The Rite of Spring , he "pushed [it] to its logical conclusion," as Eric Walter White described it. In addition,

3104-477: A general strike. The putsch quickly failed due in large part to the refusal of the ministerial bureaucracy to obey Kapp's orders. The Reichswehr, however, proved itself to be unreliable. It adopted a wait-and-see attitude under General von Seeckt, the head of the Troop Office , who said that "Reichswehr do not fire on Reichswehr". Some among the working class did not limit themselves to passive resistance to

3298-580: A great deal of monetary and political stability was restored, and the republic enjoyed relative prosperity for the next five years; this period, sometimes known as the Golden Twenties , was characterised by significant cultural flourishing, social progress, and gradual improvement in foreign relations. Under the Locarno Treaties of 1925, Germany moved toward normalising relations with its neighbours, recognising most territorial changes under

3492-506: A half-diploma. As he began spending more time in Rimsky-Korsakov's circle of artists, the young composer became increasingly cramped in the stylistically conservative atmosphere: modern music was questioned, and concerts of contemporary music were looked down upon. The group occasionally attended chamber concerts oriented to modern music, and while Rimsky-Korsakov and his colleague Anatoly Lyadov hated attending, Stravinsky remembered

3686-848: A hard, precise style of drawing, as in Hubbuch's watercolor The Cologne Swimmer (1923). In Cologne , a constructivist group led by Franz Wilhelm Seiwert and Heinrich Hoerle also included Gerd Arntz . Also from Cologne was Anton Räderscheidt , who after a brief constructivist phase became influenced by Antonio Donghi and the metaphysical artists. Artists active in Hanover , such as Grethe Jürgens , Hans Mertens , Ernst Thoms , and Erich Wegner , depicted provincial subject matter with an often lyrical style. Franz Radziwill , who painted ominous landscapes, lived in relative isolation in Dangast ,

3880-406: A landmark of the objective style. Other directors included Ernő Metzner , Berthold Viertel , and Gerhard Lamprecht . The primary characteristic of New Objective literature was its political perspective on reality. It renders dystopias , in a non-sentimental, emotionless reporting style, with precision of detail and veneration for "the fact". The works were seen to provide a rejection to humanism,

4074-545: A later date (Article 233). In the short term it was required to pay the equivalent of 20 billion gold marks in installments through April 1921 (Article 235). The most contentious article of the treaty, the so-called War Guilt Clause , did not use the word "guilt". It stated that Germany accepted full responsibility for all the loss and damage from a war that was imposed on the Allies by the aggression of Germany and its allies ( Article 231 ). The implications of Article 231 and

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4268-490: A madness behind what was happening, depicting the participants as cartoon-like. When painting portraits, they gave emphasis to particular features or objects that were seen as distinctive aspects of the person depicted. Other verists, like Christian Schad , depicted reality with a clinical precision, which suggested both an empirical detachment and intimate knowledge of the subject. Schad's paintings are characterized by "an artistic perception so sharp that it seems to cut beneath

4462-410: A musical connection to his Russian roots. The ballet Pulcinella was commissioned by Diaghilev in 1919 after he proposed the idea of a ballet based on music by 18th-century Italian composers like Giovanni Battista Pergolesi ; by imposing a work based on the harmonic and rhythmic systems of late-Baroque era composers, Stravinsky marked the start of his turn towards 18th-century music. Although

4656-546: A new parliament but lacked parliamentarians, he argued, in literature there was an expression of delight in ideas, but no new ideas, and in theater a "will to drama", but no real drama. His early plays, Baal and Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night) express repudiations of fashionable interest in Expressionism. After the destruction of the war, more conservative critics gained force particularly in their critique of

4850-437: A parliamentary system. The rebellion caused great fear among supporters of the monarchy and in the middle classes because of the soviet-style aspirations of the councils. To centrist and conservative citizens, the country looked to be on the verge of a communist revolution. By 7 November, the revolution had reached Munich , resulting in the flight of King Ludwig III of Bavaria . The MSPD decided to make use of their support at

5044-645: A peacetime army. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , the new army, the Reichswehr , was limited to 100,000 men and the Reichsmarine (navy), to 15,000. The treaty prohibited an air force, submarines, large warships and armoured vehicles. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921, after the limitations had been met. The soldiers of the Reichswehr took their oath to

5238-482: A refusal to play the game of art as utopia, a negation of art as escapism , and a palpable cynicism about humanity. Authors associated with New Objectivity literature included Alfred Döblin , Hans Fallada , Irmgard Keun , Erich Kästner , and, in Afrikaans literature , Abraham Jonker, the father of poet Ingrid Jonker . Bertolt Brecht , from his opposition to the focus on the individual in expressionist art, began

5432-682: A result it was the leadership of the Reichswehr with its largely anti-democratic civil service personnel that, along with the Foreign Office, determined the portrayal of the war in the Weimar Republic. All in all, there was little objective and critical questioning of the causes of the war or of Germany's responsibility for it in academia, politics or the media during the Weimar period. The official view of history continued to follow

5626-883: A seat at the Institut de France further dissociated him from France, and shortly after the beginning of World War II in September 1939 he moved to the United States. Upon arriving in the United States, Stravinsky resided with Edward W. Forbes , the director of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures series at Harvard University . The composer was contracted to deliver six lectures for the series, beginning in October 1939 and ending in April 1940. The lectures, written with assistance from Pyotr Suvchinsky and Alexis Roland-Manuel , were published in French under

5820-478: A series of lectures. Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia—a town now called Lomonosov , about thirty miles (fifty kilometers) west of Saint Petersburg —on 17 June [ O.S. 5 June] 1882. His mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya (née Kholodovskaya), was an amateur singer and pianist from an established family of landowners. His father, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky ,

6014-572: A set of bagatelles , a "chanson comique", and a cantata , showing the use of classical musical techniques that would later define Stravinsky's neoclassical period. The musicologist Stephen Walsh described this time in Stravinsky's musical career as "aesthetically cramped" due to the "cynical conservatism" of Rimsky-Korsakov and his music. Rimsky-Korsakov thought the Symphony in E-flat (1907)

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6208-535: A small coastal town. Carl Grossberg became a painter after studying architecture in Aachen and Darmstadt and is noted for his clinical rendering of industrial technology. Albert Renger-Patzsch and August Sander are leading representatives of the "New Photography " movement, which brought a sharply focused, documentary quality to the photographic art where previously the self-consciously poetic had held sway. Some other related projects as Neues Sehen , coexisted at

6402-545: A speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a Nazi Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929. A few weeks later, the term Weimarer Republik was first used again by Hitler in a newspaper article. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany. According to historian Richard J. Evans : The continued use of the term 'German Empire', Deutsches Reich , by the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond

6596-441: A state of "revolt against Rimsky", and that he "tried to surpass him with ponticello , col legno , flautando , glissando , and fluttertongue effects". Stravinsky defined his musical character in his second ballet Petrushka . The Russian influence can be seen in the use of a number of Russian folk tunes in addition to two waltzes by Viennese composer Joseph Lanner and a French music hall tune. Stravinsky also used

6790-591: A successful three-month tour of the United States with Dushkin; he visited South America for the first time the following year. The composer's son Soulima was an excellent pianist, having performed the Capriccio in concert with his father conducting. Continuing a line of solo piano works, the elder Stravinsky composed the Concerto for Two Pianos to be performed by them both, and they toured the work through 1936. Around this time came three American-commissioned works:

6984-399: A tendency to examine inanimate objects as a way to interpret characters and events, a lack of overt emotionalism, and social themes. The director most associated with the movement is Georg Wilhelm Pabst . Pabst's films of the 1920s concentrate on social issues such as abortion , prostitution , labor disputes, homosexuality , and addiction . His cool and critical 1925 Joyless Street is

7178-477: A tennis court, playing piano duet music, and later organizing group readings with their other cousins of books and political tracts from Fyodor Stravinsky's personal library. In July 1901, Stravinsky expressed infatuation with Lyudmila Kuxina, Nosenko's best friend, but after the self-described "summer romance" had ended, Nosenko and Stravinsky's relationship began developing into a furtive romance. Between their intermittent family visits, Nosenko studied painting at

7372-415: A toll on the elderly composer; January 1967 marked his last recording session, and his final public concert came the following May. After spending the autumn of 1967 in the hospital due to bleeding stomach ulcers and thrombosis , Stravinsky returned to domestic touring in 1968 (only appearing as an audience member) but stopped composing due to his gradual decline in physical health. In his final years,

7566-493: A work about what he called "a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death". He immediately shared the idea with Nicholas Roerich , a friend and painter of pagan subjects. When Stravinsky told Diaghilev about the idea, the impresario excitedly agreed to commission the work. After the premiere of Petrushka , Stravinsky settled at his family's residence in Ustilug and fleshed out

7760-473: A “satirical hyperrealism”, as termed by Raoul Hausmann , and of which the best known examples are the graphical works and photo-montages of John Heartfield . Use of collage in these works became a compositional principle to blend reality and art, as if to suggest that to record the facts of reality was to go beyond the most simple appearances of things. Artists such as Grosz, Dix, Georg Scholz , and Rudolf Schlichter painted satirical scenes that often depicted

7954-420: Is distinguished by the—in itself purely external—characteristics of the objectivity with which the artists express themselves. The New Objectivity was composed of two tendencies which Hartlaub characterized in terms of a left and right wing: on the left were the verists , who "tear the objective form of the world of contemporary facts and represent current experience in its tempo and fevered temperature"; and on

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8148-461: Is often divided into three main periods: his Russian period (1913–1920), his neoclassical period (1920–1951), and his serial period (1954–1968). During his Russian period, Stravinsky was heavily influenced by Russian styles and folklore. Works such as Renard (1916) and Les noces (1923) drew upon Russian folk poetry, while compositions like L'Histoire du soldat (1918) integrated these folk elements with popular musical forms, including

8342-676: Is so called because the Weimar National Assembly that adopted its constitution met in Weimar from 6 February to 11 August 1919, but the name only became mainstream after 1933. Even though the National Assembly chose to retain the old name Deutsches Reich (Art. 1 of the Constitution), hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period, and no single name for the new state gained widespread acceptance. To

8536-491: Is the noun form of the adjective/adverb and usually implies "matter-of-factness". In particular, Crockett argues against the view implied by the translation of "New Resignation", which he says is a popular misunderstanding of the attitude it describes. The idea that it conveys resignation comes from the notion that the age of great socialist revolutions was over and that the left-leaning intellectuals who were living in Germany at

8730-549: Is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music . Born to a musical family in Saint Petersburg , Russia, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg , he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied music under him until the latter's death in 1908. Stravinsky met

8924-650: The 1848 German revolutions was named as the national flag in the Weimar Constitution . It was abolished after the entry into force of the Enabling Act of 1933, when the Nazi Party gained total power, in favour of two co-official national flags: the old black-white-red imperial tricolour and the flag of the Nazi Party . From 1935, the Nazi flag with the symbol offset became the sole national flag of

9118-593: The Académie Colarossi in Paris. The two married on 24 January 1906, at the Church of the Annunciation five miles (eight kilometers) north of Saint Petersburg – because marriage between first cousins was banned, they procured a priest who did not ask their identities, and the only guests present were Rimsky-Korsakov's sons. The couple soon had two children: Théodore , born in 1907, and Ludmila, born

9312-759: The Aeolian Company in London, producing rolls that included comments about the work by Stravinsky that were engraved into the rolls. He stopped working with player pianos in 1930 when the Aeolian Company's London branch was dissolved. The interest in Pushkin shared by Stravinsky and Diaghilev led to Mavra , a comic opera begun in 1921 that exhibited the composer's rejection of Rimsky-Korsakov's style and his turn towards classic Russian operatists like Tchaikovsky, Glinka , and Dargomyzhsky . Yet, after

9506-525: The Allies , and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918. In its initial years, grave problems beset the Republic, such as hyperinflation and political extremism , including political murders and two attempted seizures of power by contending paramilitaries ; internationally, it suffered isolation, reduced diplomatic standing and contentious relationships with the great powers. By 1924,

9700-641: The Black Reichswehr , a secret reserve networked within the Reichswehr and organised as labour battalions ( Arbeitskommandos ) to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles' 100,000 man limit on the German army. The Black Reichswehr was never involved in direct military action and was dissolved in 1923 after a group of its members attempted to overthrow the government in the Küstrin Putsch . The Reichswehr also developed far-reaching cooperation with

9894-781: The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel . After a service at Santi Giovanni e Paolo with a performance of the Requiem Canticles conducted by Craft, Stravinsky was buried on the cemetery island of San Michele in Venice, several yards from the tomb of Sergei Diaghilev. Much of Stravinsky's music is characterized by short, sharp articulations with minimal rubato or vibrato . His student works were primarily assignments from his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov and were mainly influenced by Russian composers. His first three ballets, The Firebird , Petrushka , and The Rite of Spring , marked

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10088-550: The German Reich , was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic . The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar , which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English,

10282-482: The Khrushchev Thaw , partly due to the composer's 1962 visit. During his three-week visit he met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and several leading Soviet composers, including Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian . Stravinsky did not return to Los Angeles until December 1962 after eight months of almost continual traveling. Stravinsky revisited biblical themes for many of his later works, notably in

10476-455: The Kiel mutiny on 3 November. Sailors, soldiers and workers began electing workers' and soldiers' councils ( Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte ) modelled after the soviets of the 1917 Russian Revolution . The revolution spread throughout Germany, and participants seized military and civil power in individual cities. The power takeovers were achieved everywhere without loss of life. At the time,

10670-518: The Neue Sachlichkeit as a whole. For Roh, as a reaction to expressionism, the idea was to declare "[that] the autonomy of the objective world around us was once more to be enjoyed; the wonder of matter that could crystallize into objects was to be seen anew." With the term, he was emphasizing the "magic" of the normal world as it presents itself to us—how, when we really look at everyday objects, they can appear strange and fantastic. Most of

10864-639: The Reichswehr from the control of the Reichstag . Under Seeckt the Reichswehr developed into what many historians consider a "state within the state". During the 1920 Kapp Putsch , Seeckt refused to deploy the Reichswehr against the Freikorps involved in the putsch but immediately afterwards had the Ruhr Red Army brutally suppressed during the Ruhr uprising . In 1921 the Reichswehr organized

11058-650: The Second Viennese School like Arnold Schoenberg 's twelve-tone technique . In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954) was the first of his compositions to be fully based on the technique, and Canticum Sacrum (1956) was his first to be based on a tone row . Stravinsky's last major work was the Requiem Canticles (1966), which was performed at his funeral. While many supporters were confused by Stravinsky's constant stylistic changes, later writers recognized his versatile language as important in

11252-475: The Second Viennese School . Stravinsky's time before meeting Diaghilev was spent learning from Rimsky-Korsakov and his collaborators. Only three works survive from before Stravinsky met Rimsky-Korsakov in August 1902: " Tarantella " (1898), Scherzo in G minor (1902), and The Storm Cloud , the first two being works for piano and the last for voice and piano. Stravinsky's first assignment from Rimsky-Korsakov

11446-699: The Silesian Uprisings and the Greater Poland uprising in the German Province of Posen , which became part of the Second Polish Republic under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In the four years following the First World War, the situation of most German civilians remained dire. The post-war economic crisis was a result of lost pre-war industrial exports, the loss of imported raw materials and foodstuffs due to

11640-462: The Spartacus League and the left wing of the USPD. In January, the Spartacus League, in what was known as the Spartacist uprising , took advantage of a large strike in Berlin and attempted to establish a communist government. The uprising was put down by paramilitary Freikorps units consisting of volunteer soldiers. Following bloody street fights, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were summarily killed after their arrests on 15 January. With

11834-519: The University of Saint Petersburg , and he enrolled there in 1901. However, according to his own account, he was a bad student and attended few of the optional lectures. In exchange for agreeing to attend law school, his parents allowed for lessons in harmony and counterpoint . At university, Stravinsky befriended Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, son of the leading Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . During summer vacation of 1902, Stravinsky traveled with Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov to Heidelberg – where

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12028-582: The Weimar Constitution . The commander-in-chief was the Reich president , while the Reich minister of the armed forces exercised command authority. Military right of command ( Kommandogewalt ) was in the hands of the OHL. The resulting dualism between civilian power and military command was to become a heavy burden on the Republic. Whereas Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler was content with limited political and administrative duties during his tenure (1920–1928), Colonel General Hans von Seeckt , Chief of Army Command from 1920 to 1926, succeeded in largely removing

12222-414: The impresario Sergei Diaghilev soon after, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes 's Paris seasons: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature and later changed the way composers understood rhythmic structure. Stravinsky's compositional career

12416-411: The sonata form , modernizing it by disregarding the standard ordering of themes and traditional tonal relationships for different sections. Baroque counterpoint was used throughout the choral Symphony of Psalms (1930). In the jazz -influenced Ebony Concerto (1945), Stravinsky fused big band orchestration with Baroque forms and harmonies. Stravinsky's neoclassical period ended in 1951 with

12610-454: The white émigré -hub Biarritz in May 1921, partly due to the presence of his other lover Vera de Bosset . At the time, de Bosset was married to the former Ballet Russes stage designer Serge Sudeikin , though de Bosset later divorced Sudeikin to marry Stravinsky. Though Yekaterina Stravinsky became aware of her husband's infidelity, the Stravinskys never divorced, likely due to the composer's refusal to separate. In 1921, Stravinsky signed

12804-502: The 1919 Treaty of Versailles and committing never to go to war. The following year, it joined the League of Nations , which marked its reintegration into the international community. Nevertheless, especially on the political right, there remained strong and widespread resentment against the treaty and those who had signed and supported it. The Great Depression of October 1929 severely impacted Germany's tenuous progress; high unemployment and subsequent social and political unrest led to

12998-407: The 1920s. Though known late in life for his austere interpretations of the classics, in earlier years, conductor Otto Klemperer was the most prominent to ally himself with this movement. The New Objectivity movement is usually considered to have ended with the Weimar Republic when the National Socialists under Adolf Hitler seized power in January 1933. The Nazi authorities condemned much of

13192-399: The 1922 premiere, the work's tame nature – compared to the innovative music Stravinsky had come to be known for – disappointed critics. In 1923, Stravinsky finished orchestrating Les noces , settling on a percussion ensemble including four pianos. The Ballets Russes staged the ballet-cantata that June, and although it initially received moderate reviews, the London production received

13386-426: The 1961 chamber cantata A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer , the 1962 musical television production The Flood , the 1963 Hebrew cantata Abraham and Isaac , and the 1966 Requiem Canticles , the last of which was his final major composition. Between tours, the composer worked relentlessly to devise new tone rows, even working on toilet paper from airplane lavatories. The intense touring schedule began taking

13580-425: The Concerto while on tour until 1933. That year, Stravinsky received another ballet commission from Ida Rubenstein for a setting of a poem by André Gide . The resulting melodrama Perséphone only received three performances in 1934 due to its lukewarm reception, and Stravinsky's disdain towards the work was evident in his later suggestion that the libretto be rewritten. In June of that year, Stravinsky became

13774-420: The February 1909 premiere of two new Stravinsky works: Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice , both lively orchestral movements featuring bright orchestration and unique harmonic techniques. The vivid color and tone of Stravinsky's works intrigued Diaghilev, and the impresario subsequently commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate music by Chopin for parts of the ballet Les Sylphides . This ballet

13968-746: The German officer class. A rift developed between the MSPD and USPD after Ebert called upon the OHL for troops to put down a mutiny by a leftist military unit on 23/24 December 1918 in which members of the Volksmarinedivision (People's Navy Division) captured the city's garrison commander Otto Wels of the MSPD and occupied the Reich Chancellery where the Council of the People's Deputies had its offices. The ensuing street fighting left 11 Volksmarinedivision members and 56 members of

14162-526: The Kaiser that Germany needed to pursue an armistice and that the majority parties in the Reichstag, not the OHL, had to take responsibility for it. Although in retreat, the German armies were still on French and Belgian territory when the war ended on 11 November. Ludendorf and Paul von Hindenburg then began proclaiming that it was the defeatism of the civilian population – especially the socialists – that had made defeat inevitable. The stab-in-the-back myth

14356-526: The Kapp Putsch. Especially in the Ruhr , where dissatisfaction with the lack of nationalisation of key industries was particularly high, councils were formed that sought to seize local power. In the Ruhr uprising , civil war-like fighting broke when the Ruhr Red Army , made up of some 50,000 armed workers, mostly adherents of the KPD and USPD, used the disruption caused by the general strike to take control of

14550-503: The Kiel barracks. The sailors and soldiers welcomed him, and he was able to defuse the situation. On 9 November 1918, the German Republic was proclaimed by MSPD member Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building in Berlin, angering Friedrich Ebert , the leader of the MSPD, who thought that the question of monarchy or republic should be answered by a national assembly. Two hours later,

14744-901: The Left and supporters of the former empire led to political violence and extremism . The young republic found itself in a nearly constant economic and political crisis until 1924. The Treaty of Versailles ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied powers and set the conditions for peace. It was signed 28 June 1919 and can be divided into four main categories: territorial issues, disarmament, reparations and assignment of guilt. Territorially, Germany had to renounce sovereignty over its colonies and in Europe lost 65,000 sq km (25,000 sq mi) or about 13% of its former territory – including 48% of its iron and 10% of its coal resources – along with 7 million people, or 12% of its population. The Saarland

14938-455: The March 1920 Kapp Putsch , Freikorps units under General von Lüttwitz occupied the government quarter in Berlin. In an attempt to reverse the revolution and install an autocratic government, the former Prussian civil servant Wolfgang Kapp appointed himself Reich chancellor and Lüttwitz Reichswehr minister and commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr. The legal government fled Berlin and called for

15132-533: The Mariinsky Theatre, where he was introduced to Russian repertoire as well as Italian and French opera; by sixteen, he attended rehearsals at the theater five or six days a week. By age fourteen, Stravinsky had mastered the solo part of Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 , and at age fifteen, he transcribed for solo piano a string quartet by Alexander Glazunov . Despite his musical passion and ability, Stravinsky's parents expected him to study law at

15326-553: The Moscow Free Theatre. In early 1914, his wife Yekaterina contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium in Leysin , Switzerland, where the couple's fourth child, Maria Milena, was born. Here Stravinsky finished The Nightingale , but after the Moscow Free Theatre closed before the premiere, Diaghilev agreed to stage the opera. The May 1914 premiere was moderately successful; critics' high expectations after

15520-502: The National Assembly convened in the city of Weimar , giving the future Republic its unofficial name. The Weimar Constitution created a parliamentary republic with the Reichstag elected by proportional representation . During the debates in Weimar, fighting continued sporadically across Germany. On 7 April 1919 the Bavarian Soviet Republic was declared in Munich but quickly put down by Freikorps and remnants of

15714-497: The National Assembly voted to approve the treaty on 23 June. It was signed in Paris five days later. Explaining the rise of extreme nationalist movements in Germany shortly after the war, British historian Ian Kershaw pointed to the "national disgrace" that was "felt throughout Germany at the humiliating terms imposed by the victorious Allies and reflected in the Versailles Treaty...with its confiscation of territory on

15908-530: The Rhineland and 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the river demolished. Germany was prohibited from having an air force, tanks, poison gas, heavy artillery, submarines or dreadnoughts . A large number of its ships and all of its air-related armaments were to be surrendered. Germany had to compensate the Allied Powers for the losses and damages of the war, with the exact amount left to be determined at

16102-636: The Soviet Red Army , leading among other things to the secret training of German military pilots in clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. With Seeckt's fall in 1926, the Reichswehr made a change in course for which Colonel (later General) Kurt von Schleicher was primarily responsible. The goal was to arouse broad social support for rearmament and to militarize society itself for the purpose of future warfare. Under Paul von Hindenburg's Reich presidency, Reichswehr leadership gained increasing political influence and eventually helped determine

16296-470: The Stravinskys and Craft moved to New York to be closer to medical care, and the composer's travel was limited to visiting family in Europe. Soon after being discharged from Lenox Hill Hospital after contracting pulmonary edema , Stravinsky moved with his wife to a new apartment on Fifth Avenue . The composer died there on 6 April 1971 at the age of 88. A funeral service was held three days later at

16490-605: The Stravinskys lived in Switzerland until 1920, initially residing in Clarens and later Morges . During the first months of the war, the composer intensely researched Russian folk poetry and prepared librettos for numerous works to be composed in the coming years, including Les noces , Renard , Pribaoutki , and other song cycles . Stravinsky met numerous Swiss-French artists during his time in Morges, including

16684-799: The Third Reich, and after World War II, both the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic readopted the black-red-gold flag. The coat of arms was initially based on the Reichsadler ("imperial eagle") introduced by the Paulskirche Constitution of 1849, and announced in November 1919. In 1928, a new design by Karl-Tobias Schwab was adopted as national coat of arms, which

16878-525: The United States, Stravinsky diligently attended church, participated in charity work, and studied religious texts. The composer later wrote that he was contacted by God at a service at the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua , leading him to write his first religious composition, the Pater Noster for a cappella choir. In 1925, Stravinsky asked the French writer and artist Jean Cocteau to write

17072-549: The Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Greater Berlin called for a National Congress of Councils ( Reichsrätekongress ) which took place from 16 to 21 December 1918. Against the opposition of the more radical members who demanded a socialist republic, Ebert, backed by the large MSPD majority at the Congress, was able to schedule the election for a provisional National Assembly that would act as an interim parliament and be given

17266-424: The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II was announced, marking the end of Imperial Germany and the beginning of the Weimar Republic. The armistice that ended the fighting was signed on 11 November. Germany lost the war because its allies were facing defeat and its economic resources were running out, while by late summer 1918 fresh American troops were arriving in France at the rate of 10,000 per day. Support among

17460-706: The accents seemingly at random to create asymmetry. The Rite of Spring is one of the most famous and influential works of the 20th century; the musicologist Donald Jay Grout described it as having "the effect of an explosion that so scattered the elements of musical language that they could never again be put together as before." The musicologist Jeremy Noble said that Stravinsky's "intensive researches into Russian folk material" took place during his time in Switzerland from 1914 to 1920. Béla Bartók considered Stravinsky's Russian period to have begun in 1913 with The Rite of Spring due to its use of Russian folk songs, themes, and techniques. The use of duple or triple meters

17654-411: The affirmation of Ebert, those responsible were not tried before a court-martial, leading to lenient sentences, which made Ebert unpopular among radical leftists. The National Assembly election , in which women were allowed to vote for the first time, took place on 19 January 1919. The MSPD won the largest share of the votes at 37.9%, with the USPD fifth at 7.6%. To avoid the ongoing fights in Berlin,

17848-601: The argument issued by the OHL in 1914 that Germany had been threatened by invasion and encirclement. Revising the conditions of the Versailles Treaty became the main goal of German foreign policy. The consensus opposing the "war guilt clause" did much to promote agitation against foreign countries and the Weimar Constitution. Both the DNVP and, in particular, the NSDAP questioned the entire post-war order and propagated

18042-529: The art world was under the influence of Futurism and Expressionism , both of which abandoned any sense of order or commitment to objectivity or tradition. Expressionism was in particular the dominant form of art in Germany, and it was represented in many different facets of public life—in dance, in theater, in painting, in architecture, in poetry, and in literature. Expressionists abandoned nature and sought to express emotional experience, often centering their art around inner turmoil (angst), whether in reaction to

18236-598: The artists of the New Objectivity did not travel widely, and stylistic tendencies were related to geography. While the classicists were based mostly in Munich , the verists worked mainly in Berlin (Grosz, Dix, Schlichter, and Schad); Dresden (Dix, Hans Grundig , Wilhelm Lachnit and others); and Karlsruhe ( Karl Hubbuch , Georg Scholz , and Wilhelm Schnarrenberger ). The works of the Karlsruhe artists emphasize

18430-503: The author Charles F. Ramuz , with whom he collaborated on the small-scale theater work L'Histoire du soldat . The eleven-musician and two-dancer show was designed for easy travel, but after a premiere run funded by Werner Reinhart , all other performances were canceled due to the Spanish flu epidemic . Stravinsky's income from performance royalties was suddenly cut off when his Germany-based publisher suspended operations due to

18624-619: The ballet Jeu de cartes for Balanchine, the Brandenburg-Concerto -like work Dumbarton Oaks , and the lamenting Symphony in C for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra 's 50th anniversary. Stravinsky's last years in France from late 1938 to 1939 were marked by the deaths of his eldest daughter, his wife, and his mother, the former two from tuberculosis. In addition, the increasingly hostile criticism of his music in major publications and failed run for

18818-584: The ballet's experimental nature caused a near-riot at its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913. Soon after, Stravinsky was admitted to a hospital for typhoid fever and stayed in recovery for five weeks; numerous colleagues visited him, including Debussy, Manuel de Falla , Maurice Ravel , and Florent Schmitt . Upon returning to his family in Ustilug, he continued work on his opera The Nightingale , now with an official commission from

19012-711: The ballet. Diaghilev continued to organize Ballets Russes shows across Europe, including two charity concerts for the Red Cross where Stravinsky made his conducting debut with The Firebird . When the Ballets Russes traveled to Rome in April 1917, Stravinsky met the artist Pablo Picasso , and the two adventured around Italy; a commedia dell'arte they saw in Naples inspired the ballet Pulcinella , which premiered in Paris in May 1920 with designs by Picasso. After

19206-488: The beginning of his international fame and a departure from 19th-century styles. Stravinsky's music is often divided into three periods of composition: his Russian period (1913–1920), where he was greatly influenced by Russian artists and folklore; his neoclassical period (1920–1951), where he turned towards techniques and themes from the classical period ; and his serial period (1954–1968), where he used highly structured composition techniques pioneered by composers of

19400-664: The brief period between the adoption of the Dawes plan and the rise of the Nazis , encompassed public exhibitions like the Weissenhof Estate , the massive urban planning and public housing projects of Taut and Ernst May , and the influential experiments at the Bauhaus . In film, New Objectivity reached its high point around 1929. As a cinematic style, it translated into realistic settings, straightforward camerawork and editing,

19594-608: The choral Symphony of Psalms , a deeply religious work that premiered in December of that year. While touring in Germany, Stravinsky visited his publisher's home and met the violinist Samuel Dushkin , who convinced him to compose the Violin Concerto with Dushkin's help on the solo part. Impressed by Dushkin's virtuosic ability and understanding of music, the composer wrote more music for violin and piano and rearranged some of his earlier music to be performed alongside

19788-591: The classicists more clearly exemplify the "return to order" that arose in the arts throughout Europe. The classicists included Georg Schrimpf , Alexander Kanoldt , Carlo Mense , Heinrich Maria Davringhausen , and Wilhelm Heise . The sources of their inspiration included 19th-century art, the Italian metaphysical painters , the artists of Novecento Italiano , and Henri Rousseau. The classicists are best understood by Franz Roh 's term Magic Realism , though Roh originally intended "magical realism" to be synonymous with

19982-470: The collapse of Chancellor Hermann Müller's grand coalition and the beginning of the presidential cabinets . From March 1930 onwards, President Paul von Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning , Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher . The Great Depression, exacerbated by Brüning's policy of deflation , led to a surge in unemployment . On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor to head

20176-411: The complex meter in the music consists of phrases combining conflicting time signatures and odd accents , such as the "jagged slashes" in the "Sacrificial Dance". Both polytonality and unusual rhythms can be heard in the chords that open the second episode, "Augurs of Spring", consisting of an E-flat dominant 7 superimposed on an F-flat major triad written in an uneven rhythm, Stravinsky shifting

20370-529: The composer sought to correct myths surrounding him and discuss his relationships with other artists. The article was later expanded into a book, and over the next four years, three more interview-style books were published. Continued international tours brought Stravinsky to Washington, D.C. in January 1962, where he attended a dinner at the White House with then-President John F. Kennedy in honor of

20564-565: The composer's 80th birthday. Although it was largely an anti-Soviet political stunt, Stravinsky remembered the event fondly, composing the Elegy for J.F.K. after the president's assassination a year later . In September 1962, he returned to Russia for the first time since 1914, accepting an invitation from the Union of Soviet Composers to conduct six performances in Moscow and Leningrad . After

20758-476: The composition of the Reich governments. As a result, the Reichswehr contributed significantly to the development of an authoritarian presidential system during the final phase of the Weimar Republic. After Adolf Hitler announced the "regaining of military sovereignty" (reintroduction of conscription etc.) in 1935, two years after his rise to power , the Reichswehr was absorbed into the new Wehrmacht . It

20952-502: The concerts as intriguing and intellectually stimulating, being the first place he was exposed to French composers like Franck , Dukas , Fauré , and Debussy . Nevertheless, Stravinsky remained loyal to Rimsky-Korsakov – the musicologist Eric Walter White suspected that the composer believed compliance with Rimsky-Korsakov was necessary to succeed in the Russian music world. Stravinsky later wrote that his teachers' musical conservatism

21146-491: The constraints of artistic language in the same way they saw their refusal of national boundaries. They wanted to use their art in order to express political outrage and encourage political action. Expressionism, to Dadaists, expressed all of the angst and anxieties of society, but was helpless to do anything about it. Bertolt Brecht , a German dramatist, launched another early critique of expressionism, referring to it as constrained and superficial. Just as in politics Germany had

21340-498: The continental blockade, the loss of Germany's overseas colonies and the worsening debt balances that had been exacerbated by Germany's heavy reliance on bonds to pay for the war. The economic losses can be attributed in part to the extension of the Allied blockade of Germany until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 250,000 German civilians died of disease or starvation between

21534-529: The details of the ballet with Roerich, later finishing the work in Clarens , Switzerland. The result was The Rite of Spring ( Le sacre du printemps ), which depicted pagan rituals in Slavonic tribes and used many avant-garde techniques, including uneven rhythms and meters , superimposed harmonies, atonality , and extensive instrumentation . With radical choreography by the young Vaslav Nijinsky ,

21728-637: The development of modernist music. Stravinsky's revolutionary ideas influenced composers as diverse as Aaron Copland , Philip Glass , Béla Bartók , and Pierre Boulez , who were all challenged to innovate music in areas beyond tonality , especially rhythm and musical form . In 1998, Time magazine listed Stravinsky as one of the 100 most influential people of the century. Stravinsky died of pulmonary edema on 6 April 1971 in New York City, having left six memoirs written with his friend and assistant Robert Craft , as well as an earlier autobiography and

21922-589: The east bank near Cologne , Mainz and Koblenz . In addition, the Rhineland and an area stretching 50 kilometers east of the Rhine was to be demilitarized. France had demanded the occupation both to protect itself from a renewed German attack and as collateral for German reparations. The occupation was to last 5 years in the British zone, 10 in the American and 15 years in the French and Belgian zones, until 1934, but

22116-433: The eastern border and even more so its 'guilt clause'." Adolf Hitler repeatedly blamed the Republic and its democracy for accepting the oppressive terms of the treaty. Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty was widely perceived not only as a legal legitimisation of reparations but also as a moral condemnation of Germany, and it triggered a storm of indignation among the German public. The hostility towards it came from across

22310-760: The end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship. Although "New Objectivity" has been the most common translation of "Neue Sachlichkeit", other translations have included "New Matter-of-factness", "New Resignation", "New Sobriety", and "New Dispassion". The art historian Dennis Crockett says there is no direct English translation, and breaks down the meaning in the original German: Sachlichkeit should be understood by its root, Sache , meaning "thing", "fact", "subject", or "object." Sachlich could be best understood as "factual", "matter-of-fact", "impartial", "practical", or "precise"; Sachlichkeit

22504-417: The end of the war and the signing of the treaty. Many German civilians expected life to return to pre-war normality after it was lifted, but the severe food shortages continued. In 1922, for example, meat consumption had not increased since the war years. At 22 kilograms per person per year, it was less than half of the 52 kilograms consumed in 1913. German citizens felt the food shortages more deeply than during

22698-480: The enormous fall in the Papiermark 's value. After four years of war and famine, many German workers were disenchanted with the capitalist system and hoped for a new era under socialism or communism. Socialists dominated the new revolutionary government in Berlin, and numerous short-lived council republics were set up in cities across Germany. Even after they were suppressed, ideological conflicts between

22892-735: The following year. After finishing the many revisions of the Symphony in E-flat in 1907, Stravinsky wrote Faun and Shepherdess , a setting of three Pushkin poems for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov organized the first public premiere of his student's work with the Imperial Court Orchestra in April 1907, programming the Symphony in E-flat and Faun and Shepherdess . Rimsky-Korsakov's death in June 1908 caused Stravinsky deep mourning, and he later recalled that Funeral Song , which he composed in memory of his teacher,

23086-544: The government, which wanted to prevent a German admission of guilt before the world public. The committee met until 1932. During the course of World War I, war reporting was the responsibility of the German General Staff and after 1918 of the Potsdam Reich Archives founded by General Hans von Seeckt , which dedicated itself to the task of "disproving" German war guilt and war crimes. As

23280-421: The grassroots level and put themselves at the front of the movement. They joined the calls for Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate, and when he refused, Chancellor Maximilian of Baden made a public announcement that the Kaiser and Crown Prince Wilhelm had already done so. Gustav Noske (MSPD) was sent to Kiel to prevent any further unrest and took on the task of controlling the mutinous sailors and their supporters in

23474-407: The group of Russian classical composers known as The Five , according to the musicologist Richard Taruskin ); Diaghilev's company settled on the subject of the mythical Firebird . Diaghilev asked multiple composers to write the ballet's score, including Lyadov and Nikolai Tcherepnin , but after none committed to the project, the impresario turned to the 27-year-old Stravinsky, who gladly accepted

23668-465: The ideals of the labour movement because of their alliance with the old elites; the Right held the supporters of the Republic responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War, denigrating them as "November criminals" and insinuating that the German army, which was still fighting on enemy soil when the war ended, had been stabbed in the back by them and the revolution (the stab-in-the-back myth ). In

23862-421: The industrial district. After bloody battles in which an estimated 1,000 insurgents and 200 soldiers died, Reichswehr and Freikorps units suppressed the revolt in early April. Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June [ O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He

24056-558: The institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire ; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty ; and a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in Central Europe ;– 'one People, one Reich, one Leader', as the Nazi slogan was to put it. The black-red-gold tricolour of

24250-407: The last foreign troops evacuated the Rhineland on 30 June 1930. The treaty's disarmament provisions were intended to make the future German army incapable of offensive action. It was limited to no more than 100,000 men with only 4,000 officers and no general staff; the navy could have at most 15,000 men and 1,500 officers. The Rhineland was to be demilitarized and occupied and all fortifications in

24444-537: The latter's family was staying – bringing a portfolio of pieces to demonstrate to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. While the elder composer was not stunned, he was impressed enough to insist that Stravinsky continue lessons but advised against him entering the Saint Petersburg Conservatory due to its rigorous environment. Importantly, Rimsky-Korsakov agreed personally to advise Stravinsky on his compositions. After Stravinsky's father died in 1902 and

24638-512: The libretto for an operatic setting of Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex in Latin. The May 1927 premiere of his opera-oratorio Oedipus rex was staged as a concert performance since there was too little time and money to present it as a full opera, and Stravinsky attributed the work's critical failure to its programming between two glittery ballets. Furthermore, the influence from Russian Orthodox vocal music and 18th-century composers like Handel

24832-444: The libretto in November 1947; American writer Chester Kallman was later brought in to assist Auden. Stravinsky finished the opera of the same name in 1951, and despite its widespread performances and success, the composer was dismayed to find that his newer music did not captivate young composers. Craft had introduced Stravinsky to the serial music of the Second Viennese School shortly after The Rake's Progress premiered, and

25026-525: The mid-1920s, most Germans referred to their government informally as the Deutsche Republik , but for many, especially on the right, the word " Republik " was a painful reminder of a government structure that they believed had been imposed by foreign statesmen and of the expulsion of Emperor Wilhelm II in the wake of a massive national humiliation. The first recorded mention of the term Republik von Weimar (Republic of Weimar) came during

25220-667: The middle movement of which used music from an unused score for The Song of Bernadette (1943). The couple's poor English led to the formation of a predominantly European social circle and home life: the estate staff consisted of mostly Russians, and frequent guests included musicians Joseph Szigeti , Arthur Rubinstein , and Sergei Rachmaninoff . However, Stravinsky eventually joined popular Hollywood circles, attending parties with celebrities and becoming closely acquainted with European authors Aldous Huxley , W. H. Auden , Christopher Isherwood , and Dylan Thomas . In 1945, Stravinsky received American citizenship and subsequently signed

25414-412: The modern world, to alienation from society, or in the creation of personal identity. In concert with this evocation of angst and unease with bourgeois life, expressionists also echoed some of the same feelings of revolution as did Futurists. This is evidenced by a 1919 anthology of expressionist poetry titled Menschheitsdämmerung , which translates to “Twilight of Humanity”—meant to suggest that humanity

25608-471: The musicologist Jeremy Noble considered Stravinsky's neoclassical period to have begun in 1920 with his Symphonies of Wind Instruments , Bartók argued that the period "really starts with his Octet for Wind Instruments, followed by his Concerto for Piano ". During this period, Stravinsky used techniques and themes from the classical period of music . Greek mythology was a common theme in Stravinsky's neoclassical works. His first Greek mythology-based work

25802-458: The new Chancellor broad power to act outside parliamentary control. Hitler promptly used these powers to thwart constitutional governance and suspend civil liberties, which brought about the swift collapse of democracy at the federal and state level, and the creation of a one-party dictatorship under his leadership. Until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945, the Nazis governed Germany under

25996-596: The new government was confirmed by the Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council, it was opposed by the Spartacus League. On 11 November 1918, an armistice was signed at Compiègne by German representatives. It effectively ended military operations between the Allies and Germany. It amounted to a German capitulation, without any concessions by the Allies; the naval blockade was to continue until complete peace terms were agreed on. The Executive Council of

26190-399: The officer corps, while Groener pledged that the military would be loyal to the government and that it would help it in its fight against left-wing revolutionaries. The agreement marked the acceptance of the new government by the military, but the new Reichswehr armed forces, limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 army soldiers and 15,000 sailors, remained fully under the control of

26384-711: The opera The Rake's Progress . Taruskin described the opera as "the hub and essence of 'neo-classicism'". He pointed out how the opera contains numerous references to Greek mythology and other operas like Mozart's Don Giovanni and Bizet's Carmen , but still "embod[ies] the distinctive structure of a fairy tale". Stravinsky was inspired by the operas of Mozart in composing the music, particularly Così fan tutte , but other scholars also point out influence from Handel , Gluck , Beethoven , Schubert , Weber , Rossini , Donizetti , and Verdi . The Rake's Progress has become an important work in opera repertoire , being "[more performed] than any other opera written after

26578-494: The opera's composer began studying and listening to the music of Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg . During the 1950s, Stravinsky continued touring extensively across the world, occasionally returning to Los Angeles to compose. In 1953, he agreed to compose a new opera with a libretto by Dylan Thomas, but development on the project came to a sudden end following Thomas's death in November of that year. Stravinsky completed In Memoriam Dylan Thomas , his first work fully based on

26772-629: The political spectrum, from the far right to the moderate governing parties to the KPD. After the treaty came into force, the Foreign Office continued the state's control of the debate over war guilt. The War Guilt Department financed and directed the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War , which was to provide "scientific" support for the "campaign of innocence" abroad. For war-innocence propaganda at home,

26966-478: The population had begun to crumble in 1916, and by mid-1918 many Germans wanted an end to the war. Increasing numbers of them began to associate with the political left, such as the Social Democratic Party and the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party , which demanded an end to the war. When it became obvious to the generals that defeat was at hand, General Erich Ludendorff convinced

27160-439: The premiere and subsequent performances, he met many figures in the Paris art scene; Debussy was brought on stage after the premiere and invited Stravinsky to dinner, beginning a lifelong friendship between the two composers. The Stravinsky family moved to Lausanne , Switzerland, for the birth of their third child, Soulima , and it was there that Stravinsky began work on a Konzertstück for piano and orchestra depicting

27354-580: The premiere, beginning decades of collaborations between Stravinsky and the choreographer. Nevertheless, some critics found it to be a turning point in Stravinsky's neoclassical music, describing it as a pure work that blended neoclassical ideas with modern methods of composition. A new commission for a ballet from Ida Rubinstein in 1928 led Stravinsky again to Tchaikovsky. Basing the music on romantic ballets like Swan Lake and borrowing many themes from Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky wrote The Fairy's Kiss with Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Ice-Maiden as

27548-496: The pretense that all the extraordinary measures and laws they implemented were constitutional; notably, there was never an attempt to replace or substantially amend the Weimar constitution . Nevertheless, Hitler's seizure of power ( Machtergreifung ) had effectively ended the republic, replacing its constitutional framework with Führerprinzip , the principle that "the Führer's word is above all written law". The Weimar Republic

27742-491: The regular army dead. The USPD leaders were angered by what they believed was treachery by the MSPD, which in their view had joined with the anti-communist military to suppress the revolution. As a result, the USPD left the Council of the People's Deputies after only seven weeks. On 30 December, the split deepened when the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed out of a number of radical left-wing groups, including

27936-617: The regular army. The fall of the Munich Soviet Republic to these units, many of which were on the extreme right, resulted in the growth of far-right, antisemitic movements and organisations in Bavaria , including Organisation Consul , the Nazi Party , and societies of exiled Russian monarchists. Revolutionary sentiment also arose in the eastern states where interethnic discontent between Germans and minority Poles led to

28130-507: The republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. The Weimar Republic had a semi-presidential system . At the end of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a revolution , the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II , formal surrender to

28324-577: The revision of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments for an upcoming concert. The two quickly became friends and Stravinsky invited Craft to Los Angeles; the young conductor soon became Stravinsky's assistant, collaborator, and amanuensis until the composer's death. As Stravinsky became more familiar with English, he developed the idea to write an English-language opera based on a series of paintings by 18th-century artist William Hogarth titled The Rake's Progress . The composer joined Auden to write

28518-423: The right of the spectrum, the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and were appalled to see the honour of the traditional word Reich associated with it. The Catholic Centre Party favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat (German People's State), while on the moderate left, Chancellor Friedrich Ebert 's Social Democratic Party of Germany preferred Deutsche Republik (German Republic). By

28712-445: The right the classicists , who "search more for the object of timeless ability to embody the external laws of existence in the artistic sphere". The verists' vehement form of realism emphasized the ugly and sordid. Their art was raw, provocative, and harshly satirical. George Grosz and Otto Dix are considered the most important of the verists. The verists developed Dada's abandonment of any pictorial rules or artistic language into

28906-694: The same moment. Karl Blossfeldt 's botanical photography is also often described as being a variation on New Objectivity. New Objectivity in architecture, as in painting and literature, describes German work of the transitional years of the early 1920s in the Weimar culture , as a direct reaction to the stylistic excesses of Expressionist architecture and the change in the national mood. Architects such as Bruno Taut , Erich Mendelsohn and Hans Poelzig turned to New Objectivity's straightforward, functionally minded, matter-of-fact approach to construction, which became known in Germany as Neues Bauen ("New Building"). The Neues Bauen movement, flourishing in

29100-539: The serial twelve-tone technique , the following year. The 1956 cantata Canticum Sacrum premiered at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice, inspiring Norddeutscher Rundfunk to commission the musical setting Threni in 1957. With the Balanchine ballet Agon , Stravinsky fused neoclassical themes with the twelve-tone technique, and Threni showed his full shift towards use of tone rows . In 1959, Craft interviewed Stravinsky for an article titled Answers to 35 Questions , in which

29294-407: The skin", according to the art critic Wieland Schmied. Often, psychological elements were introduced in his work, which suggested an underlying unconscious reality. Max Beckmann , who is sometimes called an expressionist although he never considered himself part of any movement, was considered by Hartlaub to be a verist and the most important artist of Neue Sachlichkeit . Compared to the verists,

29488-419: The socialist movement, which represented mostly labourers, was split among two major left-wing parties: the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which called for immediate peace negotiations and favoured a soviet-style command economy, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), also known as the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which had supported the war and favoured

29682-461: The sonata, the student began his large-scale Symphony in E-flat , the first draft of which he finished in 1905. That year, the dedicatee of the Piano Sonata, Nikolay Richter, performed it at a recital hosted by the Rimsky-Korsakovs, marking the first public premiere of a Stravinsky piece. After the events of Bloody Sunday in January 1905 caused the university to close, Stravinsky was not able to take his final exams, resulting in his graduation with

29876-461: The style of expressionism. Throughout Europe a return to order in the arts resulted in neoclassical works by modernists such as Picasso and Stravinsky , and a turn away from abstraction by many artists, for example Matisse and Metzinger . The return to order was especially pervasive in Italy. Because of travel restrictions, German artists in 1919–1922 had little knowledge of contemporary trends in French art; Henri Rousseau , who died in 1910,

30070-403: The subject. The November 1928 premiere was not well-received, likely due to the disconnect between each of the ballet's sections and the mediocre choreography, of which Stravinsky disapproved. Diaghilev's fury with Stravinsky for accepting a ballet commission from someone else caused an intense feud between the two, one that lasted until the impresario's death in August 1929. Most of that year

30264-406: The success of The Firebird and The Rite of Spring in the 1910s, Stravinsky's music was respected and frequently performed in the Soviet Union, influencing young Soviet composers at the time like Dmitri Shostakovich . However, after Stalin began consolidating power in the early 1930s, Stravinsky's music nearly vanished and was formally banned in 1948. A new interest in his works was born during

30458-469: The tale of a puppet coming to life. After Diaghilev heard the early drafts, he convinced Stravinsky to turn it into a ballet for the 1911 season. The resulting work, Petrushka (under the French spelling Petrouchka ), premiered in Paris on 13 June 1911 to equal popularity as The Firebird , and Stravinsky became established as one of the most advanced young theater composers of his time. While composing The Firebird , Stravinsky conceived an idea for

30652-401: The tango, waltz, ragtime , and chorale . His neoclassical period exhibited themes and techniques from the classical period , like the use of the sonata form in his Octet (1923) and use of Greek mythological themes in works including Apollon musagète (1927), Oedipus rex (1927), and Persephone (1935). In his serial period, Stravinsky turned towards compositional techniques from

30846-417: The task of writing a democratic constitution for a parliamentary government. To ensure that the fledgling government maintained control over the country, Ebert and General Wilhelm Groener , Ludendorff's successor as leader of the Supreme Army Command (OHL), concluded the secret Ebert–Groener pact on 10 November. Over the telephone, Ebert promised that he would allow sole command of the troops to remain with

31040-457: The task. During the ballet's production, Stravinsky became close with Diaghilev's artistic circle, who were impressed by his enthusiasm to learn more about non-musical art forms. The Firebird premiered in Paris (as L'Oiseau de feu ) on 25 June 1910 to widespread critical acclaim, and made Stravinsky an overnight sensation. Many critics praised the composer's alignment with Russian nationalist music. Stravinsky later recollected that after

31234-406: The territorial losses especially angered the Germans. The treaty was reviled as a dictated rather than a negotiated peace. Philipp Scheidemann , then minister president of Germany, said to the Weimar National Assembly on 12 May 1919, "What hand should not wither that puts this fetter on itself and on us?" He resigned rather than accept the terms, but after the Allies threatened to resume hostilities,

31428-450: The time wanted to adapt themselves to the social order represented in the Weimar Republic. Crockett says the art of the Neue Sachlichkeit was meant to be more forward in political action than the modes of Expressionism it was turning against: "The Neue Sachlichkeit is Americanism, cult of the objective, the hard fact, the predilection for functional work, professional conscientiousness, and usefulness." Leading up to World War I , much of

31622-485: The title Poétique musicale ( Poetics of Music ) in 1941, with an English translation following in 1947. Between lectures, Stravinsky finished the Symphony in C and toured across the country, meeting de Bosset upon her arrival in New York. Stravinsky and de Bosset finally married on 9 March 1940 in Bedford, Massachusetts . After the completion of his lecture series, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where they applied for American naturalization . Money became scarce as

31816-440: The tumultuous Rite of Spring were not met, though fellow composers were impressed by the music's emotion and free treatment of counterpoint and themes . In early July 1914, while his family resided in Switzerland near his sick wife, the composer traveled to Russia to retrieve texts for his next work, a ballet-cantata depicting Russian wedding traditions titled Les noces . Soon after he returned, World War I began, and

32010-471: The voices were placed in the orchestra, as they were meant to accompany the action on stage. L'Histoire du soldat was composed in 1918 with the Swiss novelist Charles F. Ramuz as a small musical theatre production for dancers, a narrator, and a septet . It mixed the Russian folktales in the narrative with common musical structures of the time, like the tango , waltz , rag , and chorale . Even as his style changed in later years, Stravinsky maintained

32204-852: The war because the reality contrasted so starkly with their expectations. Immediate post-war industrial production fell to the levels of the 1880s, or 57 percent of its value in 1913. The 1919 per capita GDP was only 73 percent of the comparable 1913 figure. Controlled demobilisation kept unemployment initially at around one million. By January 1922, the unemployment rate had sunk to just 0.9%, but inflation caused most workers' real wages to be significantly lower than they were in 1913. The hyperinflation that peaked in late 1923 had its worst effects on government workers, whose wages did not keep pace with private sector workers, and on middle class Germans who had invested in war bonds or who relied on savings, investments or pensions for their living. What had once been substantial savings became essentially worthless due to

32398-451: The war ended, Stravinsky decided that his residence in Switzerland was too far from Europe's musical activity, and briefly moved his family to Carantec , France. In September 1920, they relocated to the home of Coco Chanel , an associate of Diaghilev's, where Stravinsky composed his early neoclassical work the Symphonies of Wind Instruments . After his relationship with Chanel developed into an affair, Stravinsky relocated his family to

32592-402: The war stopped the composer from receiving European royalties, making him take up numerous conducting engagements and compose commercial works for the entertainment industry, including the Scherzo à la russe for Paul Whiteman and the Scènes de ballet for a Broadway revue. Some discarded film music made it into larger works, as with the war-inspired Symphony in Three Movements ,

32786-402: The war. To keep his family afloat, the composer sold numerous manuscripts and accepted commissions from wealthy impresarios; one such commission included Renard , a theater work completed in 1916 upon a request from Princesse Edmond de Polignac . Additionally, Stravinsky made a new concert suite from The Firebird and sold it to a London publisher in an attempt to regain copyright control over

32980-422: The work of the New Objectivity as " degenerate art ", so that works were seized and destroyed and many artists were forbidden to exhibit. A few, including Karl Hubbuch , Adolf Uzarski , and Otto Nagel , were among the artists entirely forbidden to paint. While some of the major figures of the movement went into exile , they did not carry on painting in the same manner. George Grosz emigrated to America and adopted

33174-417: The world, the final Allied offensive began in August 1918, and the position of Germany and the Central Powers deteriorated, leading them to sue for peace. After initial offers were rejected by the Allied Powers, the hunger and privation of the war years came together with the awareness of an impending military defeat to help spark the German Revolution . On 9 November 1918, a republic was proclaimed , and

33368-420: The young composer became more independent, he became increasingly involved in Rimsky-Korsakov's circle of artists. His first major task from his new teacher was the four-movement Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor in the style of Glazunov and Tchaikovsky – he paused temporarily to write a cantata for Rimsky-Korsakov's 60th birthday celebration, which the elder composer described as "not bad". Soon after finishing

33562-486: Was "the best of my works before The Firebird ". In 1898, the impresario Sergei Diaghilev founded the Russian art magazine Mir iskusstva , but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia. In 1907, Diaghilev presented a five-concert series of Russian music at the Paris Opera ; the following year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of Boris Godunov . Diaghilev attended

33756-597: Was a deeply lonely child and I wanted a sister of my own. Catherine, who was my first cousin, came into my life as a kind of long-wanted sister   ... We were from then until her death extremely close, and closer than lovers sometimes are, for mere lovers may be strangers though they live and love together all their lives   ... Catherine was my dearest friend and playmate ... until we grew into our marriage. The two had grown close during family trips, encouraging each other's interest in painting and drawing, swimming together often, going on wild raspberry picks, helping build

33950-420: Was a famous bass at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, descended from a line of Polish landowners. The name "Stravinsky" is of Polish origin, deriving from the Strava river in eastern Poland. The family was originally called "Soulima-Stravinsky", bearing the Soulima arms, but "Soulima" was dropped after Russia's annexation during the partitions of Poland . Oranienbaum, the composer's birthplace,

34144-455: Was based on a folktale collected by Alexander Afanasyev . Many of Stravinsky's Russian period works featured animal characters and themes, likely due to inspiration from nursery rhymes he read with his children. Stravinsky also used unique theatrical styles. Les noces blended the staging of ballets with the small instrumentation of early cantatas, a unique production described on the score as "Russian Choreographic Scenes". In Renard ,

34338-434: Was ceded to the Allied powers, and Danzig went to the League of Nations as the Free City of Danzig . The Polish Corridor left East Prussia physically separated from the rest of Germany. Under the terms of both the Armistice of 1918 and of the Treaty of Versailles, French, British, Belgian and American troops occupied the Rhineland , the area of Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river , together with bridgeheads on

34532-477: Was divided between spending time with his family in Nice, performing in Paris, and touring other locations, often accompanied by de Bosset. At this time, Stravinsky was going through a spiritual crisis onset by meeting Father Nicolas, a priest near his new home. He had abandoned the Russian Orthodox Church during his teenage years, but after meeting Father Nicolas in 1926 and reconnecting with his faith, he began regularly attending services. From then until moving to

34726-626: Was educated by the family's governess until age eleven, when he began attending the Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium , a school he recalled hating because he had few friends. From age nine, Stravinsky studied privately with a piano teacher. He later wrote that his parents saw no musical talent in him due to his lack of technical skills; the young pianist frequently improvised instead of practicing assigned pieces. Stravinsky's excellent sight-reading skill prompted him to frequently read vocal scores from his father's vast personal library. At around age ten, he began regularly attending performances at

34920-450: Was especially prevalent in Stravinsky's Russian period music; while the pulse may have remained constant, the time signature would often change to constantly shift the accents. While Stravinsky did not use as many folk melodies as he had in his first three ballets, he often used folk poetry. The ballet-cantata Les noces was based on texts from a collection of Russian folk poetry by Pyotr Kireevsky , and his opera-ballet Renard

35114-442: Was in a twilight; that there was an imminent demise of some old way of being and beneath it the urgings of a new dawning. Critics of expressionism came from many circles. From the left, a strong critique began with Dadaism . The early exponents of Dada had been drawn together in Switzerland, a neutral country in the war, and seeing their common cause, wanted to use their art as a form of moral and cultural protest—they saw shaking off

35308-426: Was justified, and helped him build the foundation that would become the base of his style. In August 1905, Stravinsky announced his engagement to Yekaterina Nosenko , his first cousin whom he had met in 1890 during a family trip. He later recalled: From our first hour together we both seemed to realize that we would one day marry—or so we told each other later. Perhaps we were always more like brother and sister. I

35502-447: Was not well received in the press after the May 1927 premiere; neoclassicism was not popular with Parisian critics, and Stravinsky had to publicly assert that his music was not part of the movement. This reception from critics was not improved by Stravinsky's next ballet, Apollon musagète , which depicted the birth and apotheosis of Apollo using an 18th-century ballet de cour musical style. George Balanchine choreographed

35696-436: Was presented by Diaghilev's ballet company, the Ballets Russes , in April 1909, and while the company scored successes with Parisian audiences, Stravinsky was working on Act I of his first opera The Nightingale . As the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something that had recently become popular with French and other Western audiences (likely due to

35890-430: Was put under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years, and the output of the area's coal mines went to France. Alsace–Lorraine , which Prussia had annexed following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, once again became French. The northern part of Schleswig-Holstein went to Denmark following a plebiscite. In the east, a significant amount of territory was lost to a restored Poland . The Memel Territory

36084-428: Was spent composing a new solo piano work, the Capriccio , and touring across Europe to conduct and perform piano; the Capriccio's success after the December 1929 premiere caused a flurry of performance requests from many orchestras. A commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930 for a symphonic work led Stravinsky back to Latin texts, this time from the book of Psalms . Between touring concerts, he composed

36278-437: Was spread by the Right throughout the 1920s and ensured that many monarchists and conservatives would refuse to support the government of what they called the "November criminals". The destabilising effect of the stab-in-the-back myth on the Weimar democracy was an important factor in the rise of National Socialism . On 29 October 1918, a rebellion broke out among sailors at Wilhelmshaven ; similar unrest then spread to become

36472-468: Was swayed too much by Glazunov 's style, and disliked the modernist influence on Faun and Shepherdess (1907); however, critics found the works to not stand out from his teacher's music. Russian composers often used large orchestration to feature many different timbres , and Stravinsky harnessed this idea in his first three ballets, often surprising the musicians and performers due to the orchestra's great force at certain moments. The Firebird used

36666-554: Was the French painter whose influence was most apparent in the works of the New Objectivity. However, some of the Germans found important inspiration in the pages of the Italian magazine Valori plastici , which featured photographs of recent paintings by Italian classical realists. Hartlaub first used the term in 1923 in a letter he sent to colleagues describing an exhibition he was planning. In his subsequent article, "Introduction to 'New Objectivity': German Painting since Expressionism", Hartlaub explained, what we are displaying here

36860-592: Was the ballet Apollon musagète (1927), choosing the leader of the Muses and the god of art Apollo as the subjects. Stravinsky would use themes from Greek mythology in future works like Oedipus rex (1927), Persephone (1935), and Orpheus (1947). Richard Taruskin wrote that Oedipus rex was "the product of Stravinsky's neo-classical manner at its most extreme," and that musical techniques "thought outdated" were juxtaposed against contemporary ideas. In addition, Stravinsky turned towards older musical structures and modernized them. His Octet (1923) uses

37054-538: Was the four-movement Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor , which was also his first work to be performed in public. Rimsky-Korsakov often gave Stravinsky the task of orchestrating various works to allow him to analyze the works' form and structure. Many of Stravinsky's early works showed influence from French composers as well, notably in the minimal use of large doublings and different combinations of tone colors. A number of Stravinsky's student compositions were performed at Rimsky-Korsakov's gatherings at his home; these include

37248-449: Was the unified armed forces of the Nazi regime. Germany and the Central Powers fought the Allies of WWI between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918. The war ended with 20 million military and civilian deaths, including 2,037,000 German soldiers and from 424,000 to 763,000 civilians, many of them from disease and starvation as a result of the Allied blockade of Germany . After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around

37442-407: Was used until being replaced by the Nazi Reichsadler in 1935, and readopted by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950. Following Germany's defeat in World War I, several million soldiers of the Imperial German Army either simply dispersed on their own or were formally demobilized. The provisional civilian government and the Supreme Army Command (OHL) planned to transfer the remaining units to

37636-635: Was where his family vacationed during summers; their primary residence was an apartment along the Kryukov Canal in central Saint Petersburg, near the Mariinsky Theatre. Stravinsky was baptized hours after birth and joined to the Russian Orthodox Church in St. Nicholas Cathedral . Constantly in fear of his short-tempered father and indifferent towards his mother, Igor lived there for the first 27 years of his life with three siblings: Roman and Yury, his older siblings who irritated him immensely, and Gury, his close younger brother with whom he said he found "the love and understanding denied us by our parents". Igor

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